


Suptober 2019 Collection

by Tibbins



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Baby, Bees, Blasphemy, Brotherly Bonding, Cas Likes Storms, Drabble Collection, Episode: s15e02 Raising Hell, Episode: s15e03 The Rupture, Family Fluff, Fire, Fluff, Food, Grief/Mourning, Holidays, Hurt/Comfort, LARPing, Language, Led Zeppelin References, Love, M/M, Motels, Nightmares, Pain, Plus Jody and Donna, Purgatory, Sam Winchester is a nerd, Season/Series 15, Slow Dancing, Song Lyrics, Song: Carry on My Wayward Son (Kansas), Suptober 2019, Team Free Will, Torture, Wayward Daughters (Supernatural), Weapons, dumb jokes, vices
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-01
Updated: 2020-02-13
Packaged: 2020-11-22 14:10:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 32
Words: 40,796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20875508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tibbins/pseuds/Tibbins
Summary: A collection of short fics for Suptober 2019. Mostly Destiel. Some chapters have their own warnings. (Now edited)





	1. Day 1 - Autumn

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone!
> 
> So I'm a little behind on this but I only discovered the list yesterday and I'm catching up. 
> 
> This is the very first challenge of this kind I've ever taken part in and I'm very excited.
> 
> I'm not sure I'll be able to update daily, but I'll try!
> 
> This chapter contains a lot of family fluff.
> 
> Enjoy ^_^

If asked, Dean would say that summer was his favourite season. He liked the heat of it, the light. There were fewer opportunities for something to sneak up on him when the dry grass crunched underfoot and darkness was scarce. Hunts were easier in summer, he'd say; everything was just a little bit lethargic, a little less careful, a little more prone to mistakes; of course they were too, but that just increased the thrill.

He also felt like doing more outside of hunting when the weather was consistently good. He'd drag Sam and Cas out on picnics and plan barbecues, inviting everyone in his contacts list that he actually enjoyed socialising with to spend the day enjoying good food, beer, and each other's company.

He liked seeing trees full of green, and the strongest flowers that could hack the heat. He liked being dry in a state where it was prone to drizzle. He liked the way large expanses of water glittered in the sun the way Cas' eyes did when he was happy, and he liked the way the sunlight brought the chestnut out of the angel's almost-black hair. He liked going for walks with Cas at dusk and not stopping until past midnight; seeing the stars felt more special in the summer, as though by making the effort to stay up later to see them they twinkled all the brighter.

Everything felt long in summer too, fixed, permanent almost. He liked that, the consistency of it, the slow drag of days full of laughter and experience. They'd take the less direct routes on the way to hunts, stopping off at tourist traps and museums and scenic places that caught their eye on the pretense of needing to stretch their legs.

Summer also meant July 4th, which meant calling a reluctant Rowena to enchant the positive armoury of fireworks he'd accumulated for his annual party.

"I'm not Gandalf," she'd complain every year, but she never once refused and always insisted on staying to watch and soak up all credit for how spectacular it inevitably was.

He always kept a few fireworks back though, and he'd wake Sam up in the middle of the night a few days later to complete the show. If Cas noticed (which of course he did), then he was gracious enough to not intrude, understanding that this was a tradition for the brothers alone.

Yes. If you asked him, Dean would be adamant that summer was his favourite season.

***

Sam, at the other end of the spectrum, would insist that winter was his favourite. He liked going jogging on crisp mornings, feeling the air sharp in his lungs, pushing himself faster to receive the warmth he earned only by his movement. He liked coming in to a bowl of his brother's homemade vegetable soup, which he only made in the winter because "This bitch-ass weather is the only thing that can justify eating something so green."

He liked curling up with a book and too many blankets, a mug of hot chocolate at his side. 

He liked the hush that fell over the world in winter; fewer people left their homes unless they had to, especially when it snowed. Sam liked snow; he liked how it made everything fresh and clean, how paths that he'd walked all year suddenly seemed new. Hunting was easier in winter too, he'd say; snow made tracking less difficult and the radius of hunting grounds shrank dramatically as even monsters wanted to stay closer to home.

When they celebrated it, Sam liked Christmas. For Christmas Day itself, hunting permitting, Jody would invite them to Sioux Falls for a good meal, an exchanging of gifts and a gathering of friends. There was no tree, because Cas refused point-blank to top it with a crude imitation of his kin, and no religious aspect because they all agreed that it was just too weird to praise Chuck, but that didn't matter; there would be mulled wine in abundance and Claire poking fun at Cas' text speak and the swapping of stories and a roaring fire in the grate. Dean and Donna would 'help' Jody in the kitchen (which of course meant that they would try to avoid Jody's spatula when she caught them sneaking pieces of turkey or mini sausages) and Sam would find himself in an armchair by the fire, talking with Patience and Alex until he was called to help serve.

They celebrated on their own too though, and Sam liked those days just as much. The date changed each year, depending on what time they could get between hunts but it would usually be mid-December if they could manage it. Dean would whip up a special dinner (which always included an apple and cinnamon pie) and they'd drink beer and swap presents between themselves, taking the time to relax and spend time together that didn't involve an apocalypse or a strange murder or any kind of dire news at all.

Yes. Winter, Sam would say firmly, was most definitely his favourite season.

***

Castiel would say that it was important, therefore, that his favourite season was autumn; though he'd say it with a smile and an insistence that he didn't need to bridge the gap between the brothers, glad that he did anyway. It had taken him a long time to accept his place of belonging as a fixed thing and he always felt it more keenly in autumn. Though autumn wasn't fixed by any means, it was the season of change, which is what Castiel liked about it best.

The temperature didn't really affect him, but he knew that Dean was grateful that he no longer had to change his shirt and shower multiple times a day and that Sam was pleased to not yet need to put on a hat and gloves in addition to his sweater.

He wasn't convinced that autumn had any particular benefits for hunting; it was hard to walk quietly with dry leaves and squelching mud and the rain mingling with the adjustment to the darkening days made visibility difficult.

But there was just so much colour.

In the woods outside the bunker everything was highlighted with gold. Evergreens stubbornly clung to their virescence while the rest changed to varying shades of red, yellow and brown; trembling stems gave way until the ground was carpeted with the same, sinking into the softening ground to provide nutrients for the next generation of flora while the final rays of summer's warmth covered them all, making Dean's eyes sparkle and dancing with the auborn in his hair. Small animals were out in force too, preparing for the winter to come: rabbits grazing, squirrels endlessly planting their nuts, foxes scavenging for what they could find. It was a time of fervent activity, and a time of peace. Everything had a purpose in autumn, but it was an orderly chaos.

Castiel liked how the season seemed to act like a glue, bringing the occupants of the bunker together. Not that they were distant at other times of the year but while Dean still retained his frenetic energy from the summer and while Sam's excitement for the holiday season was growing and while Castiel was perfectly content, they made more time for each other; and while Cas enjoyed the larger get-togethers of their extended adopted family, he was even more fond of the simple game and movie nights that were held far more frequently in autumn, just the three of them.

It was in autumn that he had first saved Dean Winchester from Hell, and his unofficial Earth birthday, as termed by Dean, was a day that never passed without acknowledgement.

And then there was Thanksgiving, which had quickly become Castiel's favourite holiday. In between hunts and visiting friends the three of them would find a day; the morning would be dedicated to a small swapping of gifts and watching movies; Dean would go all out on the Thanksgiving meal, complete with pumpkin pie naturally, and after eating (because the brothers were too impatient to wait and there always leftovers for later anyway) they would each recite a list of ten things that they were thankful for and the reasons why. It was important that they make a list, without one it was all too easy to fall back on the generic things. Castiel knew that each brother added to and edited their lists throughout the year and he did the same, there was something truly special about bringing back a moment thought forgotten.

Castiel's first item was always a list of each time that Dean had said he loved him, much to Sam's glee and Dean's embarrassment.

What Castiel loved most about the tradition was that they never thanked God the way that the families in TV soaps did. No, they thanked each other: for staying together, for overcoming the odds, for apologies accepted, fights resolved, comforts given. They thanked each other for sharing their lives another year.

And regardless of the fact that only one of them would admit it, it was always this day that made each member of Team Free Will certain that autumn was their favourite season of the year.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So there you have it.
> 
> I hope you liked it. All feedback is treasured beyond gold.
> 
> If you want to come talk to me, or if you want to get a head start on further chapters, come find me on [my Tumblr](https://tibbinswrites.tumblr.com)
> 
> Love Tibbins xx


	2. Day 2 - Eyes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 2 already? I know, I only discovered the list yesterday so I'm catching up (and backdating the chapters so I seem competent) :P
> 
> This one is very much Dean/Cas centred. And Dean is a sap.
> 
> Enjoy ^_^

Dean could get lost in Cas' eyes. Okay, sue him for being a sap but he really could. They drew him in. Those eyes had seen ages begin and end, watched stars form and die, witnessed the horrors of every war ever fought, looked on as nothing became_ something_. It was all there and he could almost see it, the very threads of time that Castiel had existed in, threatening to weave themselves around him if he stayed looking too long.

It was usually a pointed cough from Sam that drew him back out, caused him to duck his head, look away, bark an order; sometimes he had to pull himself back, because he knew that it would be all too easy to stay staring forever.

It didn't hurt that they were beautiful eyes in their own right, huge and blue and framed with thick lashes that caught him when he wasn't expecting it. Cas' eyes were so expressive too, the minutest change to the angel's mood would be documented, a live feed straight to… whatever angels had instead of souls. They could burn with fury or soften in compassion and they smiled. Dean made it his mission to make Cas smile as much as he could, because when he smiled, _really_ smiled, more than just an amused quirk of the lips, the light danced in his eyes, shone like starlight, more precious than silver.

The blue on its own had ensnared him more than once. It was his favourite colour now. If he saw anything of the same shade, a sweater, an umbrella, the ocean, he always did a double-take, as though each of these things were Cas by association. It was dumb perhaps, and more than a little obsessive, but Dean couldn't help it.

It took him years of dancing around to accept the fact that it wasn't just Cas' eyes that he was drawn to, but the being behind them. They weren't, strictly speaking, Cas' eyes at all but Jimmy Novak's, even though Jimmy was long gone, but when Cas had been possessed by Lucifer there had been something in them that whispered _wrong_, even though they were, objectively, the same eyes.

He loved Cas' eyes, even more than the constant bed head, even more than the mole above his left nipple, even more than that beautiful, gummy smile. Because his eyes spoke louder than his voice, because they conveyed feeling that words could not, because it was his eyes that said 'I love you' and made Dean believe it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So there you have it. 
> 
> If you'd like to get a head start on further chapters, I post them [on my Tumblr](https://tibbinswrites.tumblr.com) first. 
> 
> All feedback is welcome and appreciated.
> 
> Love Tibbins xx


	3. Royalty

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 3 is all about the crown!
> 
> I chose Charlie for this one (who I don't think I've ever written before, so that was fun) because she will always be my queen.
> 
> A bit of Dean and Charlie bonding time and a celebration in Moondoor.
> 
> Enjoy ^_^

“Come _on_, Dean!” Charlie wheedled from outside the tent. “We’re going to be late!”

“Yeah, yeah,” Dean grumbled, _finally_ pushing open the door in his handmaid’s get-up. “You know they can’t start without you, _your majesty_.” He bowed, low and flamboyant and ridiculous.

Charlie laughed brightly, grabbing her friend by the elbow and tugging him along, “I’m so glad you could come, Dean. It’s been way too long since you visited Moondoor.”

“Who’s Dean?” Dean asked with a wink, “I’m Led Floydar, the last in my line.”

Charlie raised an eyebrow, “Led Floydar?”

Dean shrugged and grinned. Charlie just shook her head, falling back into character and picking up her pace so that Dean… _Led_ lagged a few steps behind as a handmaiden should. She had to admit, despite the terrible name, it was nice to see Dean out of the context of world-endy dangers and real-life monsters eating people. Ever since his first dabble with LARPing, Dean had been ever so subtly dropping hints that he may be needed in Moondoor again, so Charlie, in an attempt to help Dean save face, had organised this event that she absolutely _couldn’t _get through without her handmaiden and had begun to pester Dean about it until he (after turning her down twice), got scared that she wouldn’t ask again and accepted.

She rolled her eyes, knowing that he couldn’t see her. As smart as he was, Dean sure was an idiot sometimes. Of _course_ Sam would tease him about it, but it’s not as though either he or that dreamboat of an angel would actually think less of him if he admitted that he liked LARPing and wanted to go more often. He didn't exactly have much else to look forward to in his life of killing and blood and saving the world. What was so wrong with letting himself find joy in wearing some chainmail and pretending to be somebody else?

Stupid toxic masculinity, stupid societal pressures that tried to enforce conformity. Stupid Dean being too bullheaded to let himself do something that he liked just because he wanted to. Men were so delicate and exhausting. She was so glad she was gay.

They made their way through the camp towards the gathering area, where there were tables already crowded and steaming platters of food being brought out by those in servant’s garb. This was a feast in honour of the Queen of Moon’s fifth coronation day and Dean had better appreciate all the string-pulling and electronic favours she had had to do in order to make it happen. Led Floydar would be needed to serve her. To show up without her handmaiden would be a sign that her staff didn’t care for her enough to share in the celebration, which would call into question how fit she was to rule (or at least, that was how she sold it to Dean).

In reality, it was going to be a big party with lots of mead, speeches and food, and with a battle with the shadow orcs scheduled for the next day, there were going to be a lot of people pairing off with their best ‘last night on earth’ lines.

A hush fell over the crowd as Charlie approached, her crown balanced expertly on her head and her faux-fur trimmed velvet cloak just shy of brushing along the ground. She kept her chin high and her back straight and the smile that crept onto her face was genuine. She loved this, she _really_ loved this. It wasn’t even being treated like royalty, though that part certainly had perks, it was the thrill of being so lost in a game that the reality outside just didn’t really matter. All of her boring worries about laundry or her next electricity bill or that firewall her boss had been hounding her about, none of it would make any sense in Moondoor, so it didn’t bother her. She stepped slowly towards the throne at the head of the table occupied by those in the livery of knights and diplomats from other realms and guests of honour and stood in front of the seat, catching Led out of the corner of her eye. He fell into his proper place just behind her throne, his hand near the hilt of his sword, just in case there was trouble, but they were expecting none tonight.

“My loyal and valued subjects,” she began, scanning over the tables. Many were people she knew from her daily life, others were familiar only in Moondoor, others still were people that she had only spoken to online. She might not know all of them, and she certainly didn’t _rule_ over them, but they were her people nonetheless. “Welcome to the celebration of the beginning of my fifth year as your chosen Queen of Moons.” She paused for applause here, and those more raucous, those playing hedge knights and drunkards and jesters, obliged her with a lot more noise than strictly necessary, they quietened after a moment, helped along by Led’s glower. “I am honoured that you once again deem me a fit ruler, as one who will serve your needs with as much dedication as you serve mine. Moondoor is a great kingdom, the greatest kingdom, and it is home to the greatest of people. These past five years have not been without their challenges, but my failings have been met with nothing but kindness and support and I- I just want you to know how much I truly appreciate that.”

Damn it, she was actually tearing up. She took a breath and saw her emotion reflecting back at her in dozens of other faces. They all understood. Moondoor was special to them too. She smiled and sniffed, swallowing any more tears. Led stepped forward and placed a polished silver goblet on the table in front of her before filling it from a nearby jug of wine and falling back into place, a quiet, proud smile on his lips.

“So eat, drink and celebrate, my friends! To another year of prosperity!” Charlie finished, raising the goblet before her, waiting until everyone else followed suit and echoed her before taking a long drink. The wine was sweet and fruity and flowed over her tongue like the promise of summer. She then sat on the padded seat of her throne and motioned for Led to fill up a plate for her before sitting at her side so they could enjoy the feast together.

“Nice speech, your highness.” Dean muttered quietly, in between mouthfuls of roast pork and parsnips.

Charlie grinned and swallowed. “It helps to be honest,” she said. “We all find Moondoor for our own reasons but once we’re here we’re family. You get it, you’re one of us now too.”

Dean snorted and looked out with amused scepticism over the tables of laughing people who dressed up and played pretend for fun, who used each other and this world they’d built as an escape from whatever awaited them back home. His expression softened then, turning fond eyes back to her.

“Yeah,” he said. “I think I do.”

Charlie smiled at him, and then ordered Led to refill her plate so she didn’t have to get up. Sighing happily with her full goblet she leaned back into the velvet cushions. It was good to be queen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So what did you think?
> 
> All feedback is welcome and loved.
> 
> If you'd like, come and find me on [my Tumblr](https://tibbinswrites.tumblr.com/)
> 
> Thanks for reading! 
> 
> Love Tibbins xx


	4. Books

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 4 - Books - In which Sam is a nerd and Dean leaves him to it. Family fluff and brotherly bonding.
> 
> Enjoy ^_^

Every six months or so, Sam got it into his head that the library needed a complete do-over. There would be no warning as far as Dean could tell, he’d just walk into the war room one morning to find the place _covered _with books. Like, no actual floor or even a path to the main door covered.

“Sam!” He’d call, and his brother’s shaggy head would pop out from the library archway.

Then he’d splutter something indignant and unintelligible (but _very _witty and cutting) and Sam would shrug.

“I thought I’d re-order them.”

“Why?”

“Because.”

And then he’d launch into his explanation of exactly _why_: It had taken them too long to find the solution for Garth on his last case which had kept him away from Bess and his kid for almost a whole week; really, Dean, it just didn’t make _sense _to have them ordered alphabetically by author’s surname when they searched for books by topic; some books had helped them out far more often than others, so why not arrange them so the ones they kept coming back to were at eye level while the ones they’d never even opened could go on the very bottom or top shelves?

Dean had figured out after the first few times though that Sam just enjoyed it. He liked figuring out a new system, laying out all the books on the floor and re-arranging them according to that system before re-shelving them. That way, he’d explained with a little too much excitement in his voice for a grown man, he made sure that he wasn’t left with a bunch of books in the wrong places because he’d just plain forgotten about them. Besides, shifting around still-shelved books was a bitch ’cause you had to make room on the shelf by removing books from the end and shifting along _every other book_ that came after it just to make the room, and taking them all off gave him the opportunity to dust down the shelves too. It was far more practical this way.

At this point Dean would usually back away slowly and leave him to it, though he’d be sure to stop in at regular intervals with coffee, which Sam would tiptoe towards him to take because for someone so gangly he sure had the ability to find even the tiniest patches of solid ground to place his feet in between all the dusty leather, or to call Sam for meals, which he always inhaled in microseconds, eager to get back to his task. If Dean needed to leave the bunker for whatever reason he’d do so via the garage and if he got bored, he’d actually lend a hand with the re-shelving process (of course he would _never_ try to help with the re-organising on the floor, he wasn’t suicidal) and he would pass Sam the next few books in the sequence to be carefully slotted into place.

It wasn’t exactly Dean’s favourite way to bond with his brother—he much preferred creaming him at Mario Kart—but there _was_ something soothing about the repetition of it. Most of the time they just shelved in silence and Dean watched as his brother’s posture changed to something loose and relaxed, his eyes intensely focused but without the urgency that often came with such an expression.

This was like meditation for him, Dean had realised; surrounding himself with all the knowledge that had ever come before, giving himself an excuse to handle it, to flip through it, to be near it. Dean got it, in a way. He journalled, kept a record of what they’d fought and how to kill it, everything they’d learned since John had died was squirrelled away in a box under his bed. He found it comforting to have a reminder of what he knew and what he had experienced. He liked to be certain, he liked to have a direct course of action, he liked to have the answer spelled out for him in black and white, _here’s the thing, and here’s how to kill it._

Sam, however, apparently found comfort in what other people knew, what _they _had experienced. Sam liked _possibilities;_ he liked to find patterns and sources, he liked to cross-reference to confirm the likelihood of a thing being true. Of course, he was also adaptable when the lore went to shit, which was what made him such a good hunter, but even when the lore was wrong, he still held a respect for it, a reverence that Dean often mocked.

But seeing Sam’s soft smile, as he surveyed the new, ‘better’ system he’d created, content in his work for another few months, looking so proud and so nerdy and so goddamn _tease-able,_ Dean couldn’t bring himself to say a word.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Before any of you ask, yes, I re-arrange my bookshelves like this. Everything goes on the floor and gets shuffled around there before going back on the shelves. It's great fun.
> 
> Let me know what you think! All feedback is appreciated.
> 
> If you want a (very small) head start on the next chapter, or if you want to read some Tumblr exclusive stuff I've done, you can find me [here](https://tibbinswrites.tumblr.com/).
> 
> Love Tibbins xx


	5. Water

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 5 - Water
> 
> This one is a little sadder, a little angstier, but more in tone rather than for anything that happens. Castiel focused.

Castiel waited until both Winchesters were asleep before quietly making his way outside. He used the garage exit rather than the loud main door in the war room. He'd left his phone on his desk, and his coat and suit jacket on the chair as a clear sign that he was coming back, just in case one of the others woke up and worried about where he had gone. After all, who would want to go out in such weather?

Dean had been complaining about the rain for the last several hours now. It had been a near-constant deluge; audible even from underground, it providing a rhythmic soundtrack no matter where in the bunker they went. Dean found it annoying. He'd wanted to drive into town for a special late-night Western movie marathon. When Cas suggested that he could still go as sitting in a movie theatre was usually a dry activity, Dean huffed and said that he'd have to get there three hours early if he even wanted to get a place in line, a line that was very much _outside_.

Castiel hadn't realised that there was such a large percentage of the population of Lebanon, Kansas that were Western fans. The town was reasonably small after all, and they didn't get a lot of tourists. People passed through here, of course, on their way to larger cities in other states, but very rarely was it a place that people would stop without a reason.

Sam didn't much like the sound either. He said it was soothing on its own, a nice thrum to read to like white noise, but when the wind started to interrupt the rhythm of it he said the effect was somewhat spoiled and kept making him jump when it came back with force after a lull.

Castiel suspected that that Sam's agitation would have gotten worse when the storm began in earnest an hour ago and the snap and roll of thunder became interspersed within the calming rain. When Castiel had first met him, Sam was as unbothered by loud noises as Dean was, but since the return of his memories from the cage, he flinched with little provocation: the slam of a door, someone snapping their fingers, even a too-quick movement in his direction. Sometimes it helped his hunting, other times it didn't, but it was something that Castiel couldn't heal, and something that he doubted would ever fully go away.

The rain and wind was louder against the warded corrugated steel shutter in the garage. The thing used to have to be unlocked from the ground, then raised or lowered by hand but soon after arriving, Dean had engineered a simple mechanism that meant it could be done remotely. At least, _he'd_ termed it simple. Castiel privately thought that some of Rowena's magic was easier to understand, and it wasn't as though lifting the thing was difficult for him. But now all he needed to do was press a button on his keyring and the shutters would lift.

The shutters were loud though, so he took the side door instead. Both led out into a passageway large enough for two of Dean's impala to drive side-by-side. It sloped gently up and around, emerging about a hundred and seventy yards away from the bunker itself onto a dirt track that was difficult to find unless you already knew where it was, in case it was besieged and the occupants needed a discrete escape. Dean called it 'great planning', Sam called it 'the paranoia of old men', Castiel however, called it 'inconvenient necessity'. He figured that he would resent the long tunnel until the very second that he needed it.

Castiel hadn't bothered turning on the garage lights and so the tunnel was as black as the Empty. The passageway had no lights of its own, for stealth, if Castiel was to guess, though Dean had installed a runner of reflective tape along the bottom to help navigate the middle section where neither the garage lights nor the natural light of outside could reach. At the moment the sky was so heavy with cloud that there was no natural light save for the occasional electric flash that skittered along the reflective runner.

Castiel picked up his pace, excitement swirling from his very core. The darkness was nothing to him, after all. He could still see the places where the tape was beginning to peel, and the slow lightening as the darkness became less solid when he rounded the final bend.

The dirt path was a sluice of mud. Cas stopped just inside the tunnel, allowing the cold spray to lightly hit his face and shirt, a promise of what was to come if he took just one more step. But he hesitated. He had been with humans too long, perhaps, and when he _was_ human, he'd learned that rain was to be avoided when possible, that it was unpleasant to be wet and cold, that it made one shiver, that it seeped through below his skin, could make him sick.

He shook his head. He didn't like to think of that time, it only brought resentment to the surface; how different his experience as a human could have been if Dean hadn't unceremoniously kicked him out with nothing but a clap on the shoulder, a duffle bag and a wad of cash, some of which he'd spent, the rest he'd gotten careless with. He had to keep reminding himself that it wasn't truly Dean's fault, he'd been oblivious to how vulnerable Castiel truly was. He'd thought that one with all the memories of an angel, a soldier with a vast inherent knowledge of how human bodies worked would be fine. But knowing and experiencing were two different things.

He stared out of the mouth of the passageway, feeling the gentle spray, watching the rain that seemed less like droplets and more like ever-moving strings stretching up into the sky. The sound was mesmerising. The wind gave a sudden howl, tugging at his loose shirt and hair as though urging him out.

Castiel took off his shoes and socks and left them in the dry passageway before he stepped forward, his foot immediately sunk up to the ankle in mud. It was cold, and smooth between his toes. He could feel the temperature, could pinpoint it to exactness, but it had no effect on him anymore. He enjoyed the sensation of his frivolity and took another few steps, his hair quickly flattened to his skull under the force of the rain and his clothes began to cling to his skin.

The wind buffeted him a little, sending rain straight into his face one moment, or pushing him forward the next. It seemed almost playful, eager. It had been a long time since Castiel had gone out in a storm and perhaps the storm had missed him too.

He kept walking, yanking his feet from the sucking mud to keep moving forward, the trees along the road began to bow and creak as the wind picked up. He was following the lightning. He knew it was close, it had to be. He hadn't felt a storm call him like this for a few years now. After a while he squelched off the path and into the forest, heeding the call of the thunder. It seemed to rumble his name and he quickened his pace. He had _missed_ this.

He emerged in a clearing and lightning forked above him in greeting. He raised his eyes to the sky, letting the water hit him, creating rivulets in the creases of his skin. He felt… energised as lightning flashed again, striking the very edge of the clearing, adding smoke and electricity to the smells of rain and earth. Storms were a meeting of all four elements, they carried a kind of magic in them that had always drawn Castiel. Very few other angels felt the storm as he did, and none were left now.

Lightning struck again, only feet away now and Castiel screamed into it. He screamed where he couldn't be heard, he screamed out his grief, his anger, his anguish. He screamed out his frustrations and his love and his joy. He screamed until his vocal chords gave in, and then, purged and empty and free, surrounded only by the storm, he began to laugh. The thunder laughed with him, the rain danced around him and as lightning struck the ground inches behind him he leaned back into it, and for an instant he had his wings again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How are you liking these so far? 
> 
> I'm having a lot of fun ^_^
> 
> If you want to come and find me on Tumblr for more of my writings, you can find me [here](https://tibbinswrites.tumblr.com/)
> 
> Love Tibbins xx


	6. Outfit of the Day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 6 - Outfit of the Day
> 
> Castiel really likes bees (and bee stuff)

Castiel liked going to the farmer's market in town. It was held on the first Saturday of each month from May through to October, before it became the daily 'Christmas market' in December. Sam would go with him most of the time but some days, like today, he preferred to stay in. Cas mostly went for the local honey; the stall was run by a sunny middle-aged woman called Lucy, who lived on the outskirts of town with her apiary and she always slipped Castiel an extra jar because he would pepper her with questions about her bees until she ran out of breath.

"You could come and see 'em for yerself, y'know," she told him with a friendly wink, "I open them to the public some days. There's a little tunnel and shed there with information of the types of bees I keep. For schoolkids mostly, class trips, y'know in the summer. But if you come by sometime I'd let ya in no trouble. And if you'd like to help out, I could always use an extra pair of hands around harvest time."

"I'd like to," Cas replied with a wistful smile. "But I work a lot, a lot of trips out of town. I can't guarantee I'll be around."

"Just if you can." Lucy said, handing him his brown paper bag. "It's nice to talk to someone around here who actually cares about the world outside of the one they see."

Dean would say that the woman was flirting with him, he'd nudge Castiel in the ribs, encouraging him to try some kind of line, but Castiel never would. For one thing, he was pretty sure that Lucy wasn't interested in relationships of any kind. She'd mentioned this once or twice, laughing about being happily single in the way that suggested it was true, rather than the way people often did, trying to cover their loneliness. For another thing, Castiel wasn't interested. He liked Lucy, would like to consider her a friend, and he very much enjoyed talking with her when she was at her stall. She set up one most days while the market was on, though earlier in the summer she had no honey.

He bought the honey mostly for Sam, who spread it on toast in the morning before his run. It was more expensive than the squeezy bottles at the supermarket, but Castiel liked to show support for Lucy. Apiaries were a fine hobby in his opinion, and he would like a hive of his own, but failing that, it was nice to support a friend.

Lucy sold other things on her stall too; beeswax candles scented with different floral or herbal tones. He'd bought one or two of these. He sometimes lit them in his room at night, just breathing in their fragrance. Everything was in some way bee-related: pencils and erasers and keychains, cheap things that Lucy probably bought in bulk from some warehouse, leftovers from the school trips that she could sell on, but there were also some things clearly lovingly made by hand. Beautifully stitched patches, delicately painted teacups, even a few small framed paintings done in watercolour, lace doilies, t-shirts, a few clay sculptures, some knitted items. There were also some larger prints in varying styles done and donated to her by local artists. She apparently taught weekly classes in the village hall on painting because 'bees don't pay the bills', and attended several other crafts classes to help her make things for her stall.

The weather was unseasonably warm for October and he'd gotten more cash than he needed at the ATM (he never liked paying with his fake card at the market; it felt disingenuous, like he was stealing), he was feeling frivolous and this would be the last week of the market until May and the last honey until next year (there were less than five jars left on her stall, the last of her harvest) so he bought quite a bit more than just the honey. One of the small watercolours caught his eye just after he'd made his purchases and so he bought that too; a bee in beautiful pastel shades of pink, purple and blue. It was in a chunky, plain white plastic frame and very small, the bee itself was about half the length of his middle finger. He would put it on his desk, he decided, right in the middle.

He felt a little bad, spending the Winchester's money on things that he didn't strictly need. Dean never complained about him buying food, so the honey wasn't an issue, but he'd never really bought anything else except with Dean or Sam on a case so he wasn't sure how they'd react. Perhaps it was only useless things Dean wouldn't like him buying. If that was the case, then he could just utilise everything he'd bought.

***

"Cas?" Dean said, squinting at him through the steam coming off his coffee mug the next morning.

"Hmm?"

"What the hell are you wearing?" Dean's tone was strange, thick, like he needed to cough.

"Oh," Castiel said, looking down self-consciously at his modified jacket, new t-shirt and worn jeans that could pass as being ripped by design, though they weren't. "The jeans are yours, I hope that's alright. I bought the rest at the farmer's market yesterday."

His fingers came up to the fabric hem of the shirt. Dean looked confused, and something else too, something soft.

"Why?" He asked.

"I-" Castiel hesitated, looked down again, at the light blue t-shirt with a little cartoon bee on the front, sporting a scowl and a pair of crossed arms, a speech bubble that emanated from its mouth said 'Buzz off', at the yellow and black striped woollen socks, at the pocket of his jacket, onto which he'd sewn a patch of another brightly coloured cartoon bee, this one happily leaving a trail of wonky lines in white thread that Castiel had sewn himself to try and make it look like the bee had come out of his pocket. He'd been proud of himself for this small accomplishment, under Dean's heavy gaze though, his effort suddenly felt stupid and pointless.

"I liked them," he finished in a very small voice.

A gentle smile split Dean's face.

"Well okay then," he said. "I think I've got a spare suit jacket you can use when we need to pass off as feds."

"Can I wear my new tie?" Cas asked eagerly, tugging on the one around his neck and showing it to Dean properly, it was dark blue, similar to his other one, but a slightly different shade and with a very small bee outline stitched on the end in shimmering gold thread.

Dean laughed and took the end of the tie to examine it. "Sure, buddy," he said, his eyes crinkling at the edges as he looked up. "It's nice. Matches your eyes."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unfortunately, this prompt works less well in fanfic than it does in art (which I have no skill at) but the image of Cas just covered in bee stuff is very cute to me.
> 
> If you like, come find me on Tumblr [here](https://tibbinswrites.tumblr.com/)
> 
> Love Tibbins xx


	7. Battered and Bound

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Battered and Bound - as you can probably guess, this one is pretty angst and torture-heavy, though not much gore. If you're not good with that, you might want to skip this one.

Dean awoke with a splitting headache and forced himself to _not move_ while he took stock of the situation, keeping his eyes closed. He was sitting up, head hanging, adding a wicked crick in his neck that would take days to fully go away to his growing list of complaints. The chair he was in was metal, heavy-duty, possibly bolted down. His hands had been forced through the slats of the back so they could be bound tightly. The rope was good quality, quite thin but strong, with enough give to prevent it from easily snapping. And it didn’t feel like the switch-blade was in his sleeve any more. Unfortunate. This wasn’t going to be easy.

He kept his head where it was, kept his breathing deep and even, listening for any hint of whatever thing had trussed him up like a damn chicken. It was frankly embarrassing the amount of times he’d woken up like this. For one of the most feared hunters in the country, it apparently sure was easy to sneak up on him and bash him over the head. Sam was no better, that boy would probably have some kind of brain damage by now if Cas didn’t periodically heal them.

“You can quit the act,” a female voice said. “I know you’re awake.”

Damn. So not an amateur then. That was about all he could narrow it down to really; vamps could hear the change in your heartbeat, djinn could sense when you were no longer under their thrall, werewolves could smell the chemicals that flooded a waking person’s system, angels and demons and gods… they almost always knew too. In fact, nine times out of ten the pretending-to-be-asleep shtick didn’t work. He only kept doing it because when it did, it was really fun.

Dean blinked and lifted his head, abandoning pretence immediately. He looked around first, taking in the stone room, the thick air of underground, hanging from the walls were chains with flakes of red on them, rust or blood he couldn’t tell from here. There was also a dirty looking cot against far wall. His chair seemed to be in the centre of the room.

Dean yawned and looked up at the woman with a smirk, “Congrats, you’ve got the torture dungeon model 38.4. Pretty standard really. Sweetheart, if you’re trying to scare me, this ain’t gonna do it.”

“It’s not your fear that I care about, Dean Winchester. Only your pain.”

At this point, Dean had given up on asking how the monsters they hunted knew his name. He was practically a celebrity. It was weirder when they _didn’t_ know to be afraid.

This woman didn’t look afraid though. She didn’t have the smarmy confidence of a demon either, or the stick-up-the-ass look of an angel.

“What are you?”

“Apathetic.”

Dean frowned. The woman looked down at him passively. “My species doesn’t have a name, if indeed, there are more than me. I assume there are.”

“You don’t know?”

“It makes no difference either way.” Her voice was hollow, devoid of all feeling, but with a lilting accent he couldn’t place. She really didn’t care that she might be the only one of her kind. What the hell even_ was_ her kind? How could he pray to Cas to start researching how to kill a creature with no name?

He tried nonetheless. Praying mental snapshots of his situation and the woman in front of him, hopefully it would be enough if he couldn’t make it out himself.

“I’m going to feed now,” she said, stepping around the chair to avoid the reach of his legs – smart – and resting a palm around the back of his neck.

White-hot agony speared though him at her touch, shooting up into his brain, blotting out the (until that moment noticeable) pain of his headache and neck with something a thousand times worse. He thought he screamed, he must have tried to jerk away from her hand. The metallic tang of blood rushed into his mouth where his teeth must have ripped at the skin of his lip. He thought perhaps his nose was bleeding too, his eyes, his ears, his very pores oozing red fluid as it too tried to escape the all-encompassing torment.

And then it was over and a string of blood hung from his mouth, trembling with each one of his shuddering breaths.

“That all you got, bitch?” Dean spat, because he had to, because to admit that he would rather she run him through with a sword than go through that again would be admitting a weakness he couldn’t have, not in front of the monsters.

“I will not be hungry again for another few hours,” the thing said, clearly done with any kind of small-talk. She walked out of sight and Dean heard the sounds of a door opening and closing and locking, and then footsteps fading away.

As soon as he deemed himself in the clear he searched every inch of the room from his chair, he strained his aching neck around in all directions, trying to see something of use, _anything_. The last thing he remembered before waking up here was throwing down a few dollar bills onto a sticky bar top and standing to leave. He supposed this thing must have caught him on the way out. He didn’t remember seeing her in the bar.

They were investigating a murder, the murder of a guy who’d been missing for thirty-six years. He’d almost not been found at all, having been buried deep in protected woodland, but a few days ago a ranger had noticed all the animals avoiding a particular spot and had gone to investigate.

The body can’t have been there more than a week but the skin was paler than it should have been by far. It was also stained with dry blood though there hadn’t been any visible wounds. There had also been considerable damage to the brain, and a raised handprint on the back of the neck (which of couse matched on the system for one or two similar cases dating as far back as the records went, apparently it was rare that the bodies were found (Dean didn't buy for a second that they were the only ones)).

It was just their kind of weird, so they’d packed up and shipped out and Dean had been asking around for anyone who remembered the guy vanishing nearly forty years ago. He hadn’t gotten anywhere.

Dean shuddered, knowing now what that poor guy had been going through for the past three and a half decades and wondered how he'd lasted so long. _He_ was balking at the idea of experiencing that pain a second time, he certainly wouldn't last another thirty years.

_Weak_, his mind hissed at him,_ you were on Alastair’s rack for as long. You will suffer this as long as you need to_.

He was ashamed at that. He'd thought that he knew pain. Alastair had carved the kind of pain into him that had changed who he was, the kind of pain that had chipped away at his resolve, at his sanity, at his humanity, and then he'd taken up the knife himself and etched it in a little deeper. So yeah, he and pain had been pretty close once upon a time. They were just getting re-aquainted, that was all. He could wait this out, he _would_ wait this out.

Just long enough for Sam and Cas to find him.

Xxx

Four feedings later and Dean openly sobbed whenever the creature entered the room. Not that it mattered, she was as impervious to begging as she was to threats, unmoved by bargains, by bravado, by screams. She didn’t care that he told her this was _nothing_ compared to Hell, she didn’t care that he was lying. She didn’t try to gag him or muffle his screams so either she had good soundproofing or she lived way out in the middle of freaking nowhere, which was the only useful information he had to feed to Cas.

He measured time by feedings now, by the fear that ebbed and flowed with her presence. He still wasn’t sure what she was feeding on, he wasn’t sure he wanted to know. She didn’t offer the information and he didn’t ask.

This was worse than any other time he’d been held captive. There were no taunts to bite back at, no cracks in her veneer to exploit. She wasn't bothering to try to scare him or to placate him, he was just here for when she was hungry and ignored otherwise.

She doused him with water once, immediately after feeding, and he spluttered for breath, disorientated and confused. She also fed him by hand, using a glove, and as much as he wanted to, he knew he couldn’t reject the food or bite at her if he wanted to keep any strength at all. She gave him water after each feeding, tipping the neck of a plastic bottle over his mouth. It was up to him whether to drink or not. He’d refused at first, keeping his lips tightly pressed together, but she didn’t seem to care about that either.

Apathetic was probably the most accurate way to describe her.

Each feeding was worse than the last. The lack of natural light, of any kind of social contact, of enough sustenance to do anything more than just keep breathing was taking a gruelling toll. She didn’t talk to him much. She would respond to his words most times, but everything she had to say was just so _empty_ that there was no satisfaction in trying to goad or insult her. His sight had started to go fuzzy; something had fried back there during the last feeding, everything was just slightly blurry now and it strained him to focus. Not that there was anything to see. He’d looked for any kind of escape route, a weapon. He’d even tried to break the chair, slamming one of the legs with his bare foot again and again but tied up as he was, his strength draining by the second, it was looking pretty bad.

He forgot to be ashamed of his fear now, of his gutteral _get away!_ response whenever he heard the sound of approaching footsteps. He forgot to be ashamed of his tears and of his screams and of his sweat. He forgot that he'd thought he'd known what pain was before her. Alastair had hacked through his bones, trimmed his nerves, pulled his veins out through his fingertips, put out his eyeballs with blunt twigs, snapped his ribcage, toyed with his entrails and a myriad other things, including the psychological stuff. Dean would have welcomed that kind of torture now. Whatever this creature was, whatever she did, it was worse. She didn't just inflict pain, there didn't seem to be a source to it, Dean couldn't identify _where_ it hurt, only that when she touched him, it really fucking _hurt_. Alastair's pain had gotten deep, changed him irrevocably into somebody who could never forget why, but this creature wormed its way into his very _molecules_, altering them to read nothing but raw agony. For those few seconds (or minutes, or hell, hours, it's not like he could keep track), he wasn't just hurting, he became pain itself and he forgot that he was human.

He forgot what he was still waiting for.

Xxx

It was coming up to feeding eighteen now. It must have been at least a week since his capture. His fingers had been numb for two feedings. How the other guy had lasted so long he didn’t know; perhaps that brain damage had kicked in around now because Dean could really use some. He was done. He barely bothered to open his eyes anymore, everything was covered in a red film now as well as the blur, which had grown so bad that everything looked outlined in static so he mostly left them closed. His ears whined even when there was nothing to hear. Any words he tried to say came out slanted and thick his hands barely moved. It was all he could do to remember to inhale every so often. He was a fucking useless hunter.

There was a muffled scuffling sound and Dean shook his head, trying to clear his ears. He was pretty sure they were blocked with blood. Everything tasted, smelled and looked like blood here, and he didn’t even have a deal to take that would make it stop.

The scuffling continued for a while and then stopped. Dean forced his eyes open when he heard the footsteps, regular, heavy, and it must be feeding time because Dean’s body was already straining in his bindings, trying to get as far away from the door as possible.

The footsteps stopped and then there was a loud _BANG_. The door burst open and two blurry shapes rushed in. Two?

“Dean!” One of them yelled, and warmth filled him at the voice, though he wasn’t quite sure why.

“Suhme,” was the sound that left his mouth, though he couldn't seem to connect the sound to a thought.

“Crap. Dean, how bad is it?”

The blurry outlines of fingers reached for him then and he screamed, trying to shove his weight to one side, away from the touch. He heard something _pop_ in his shoulder before he felt it, but that was fine, that was like a headache, it wasn’t a touch.

Incredibly, the fingers stopped advancing.

“Dean?” The voice was very small now and Dean wanted to cry, probably _was_ crying, his face didn’t feel much any more.

“Let me see,” came another voice, deeper, and the outline in front of him shifted into another; more warmth, but different, something more painful, but not _bad_.

“Cuh,” his mouth said.

“Yes, Dean. It’s me, it’s Cas. We’ve come to take you home.”

“Hum,”

“That’s right.” The voice sounded strained. “I’m going to heal you now, as much as I can.”

“Nuh!” Dean yelled. He knew what that meant. It meant a hand on his neck, it meant more agony, it meant-

The fingers landed lightly on his cheek and his eyes blinked and sharpened, the red tint draining away. A mop of dark hair and huge, worried blue eyes gazed at him.

“Cuh?”

Cas nodded and forced a smile. “Sam, cut his hands free, I can’t heal much in here, the warding is strong.”

Sam, shaggy-haired and gaunt-faced gave a grim nod. Dean kept his eyes on Cas and Cas looked back steadily.

“We’re not going to hurt you, Dean. No more pain.”

“Nuh muh?” It was hard to believe, he barely remembered a time before the pain.

Cas’s eyes were bright and wet in the dim room and he shook his head. “I promise.”

“I pred.”

Cas’ expression softened even further and his fingers trembled against Dean’s cheek.

“I know, my love. I heard you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoop.
> 
> I don't know about you but I'm pretty intrigued by whatever this creature is. I kinda want to expand on it but I'm running behind today and I really need to go to bed soon as I've got an extra hour in work for overtime :(
> 
> All your opinions are greatly appreciated and I want to know them all!
> 
> If you'd like to come talk to me, or read some of my Tumblr exclusive stuff (and some poetry), you can find me [here.](https://tibbinswrites.tumblr.com/)
> 
> Love Tibbins xx


	8. Vices

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Vices - Sam and Cas talk about Dean's alcoholism.

Dean headed for the liquor as soon as he dropped his duffle bag by the door. Sam watched him go, a small frown creasing his forehead.

It had been a bad hunt. Almost a whole family had died and Dean blamed himself, because of course he did. If _anyone_ died when they were out on a hunt then Dean blamed himself. Most of the time he could pass it off with a joke, and it was less bad when they were still working out what the creature was. But past the interview stage, when they were gearing up to finally kill the thing, that was when he took every new death hard.

Cas stayed with Sam and they walked towards the library together, though Cas’ eyes followed Dean until he was out of sight.

They often ended up in the library on nights like this. Sam poured them both a few fingers of whiskey, which they would sip for the rest of the evening. The alcohol had no effect on Cas, and Sam craved company more than oblivion.

“Why does he drink?” Cas asked quietly, tilting his glass on the table and rolling it, watching the amber liquid roll with the motion too.

“It’s been a bad day,” he said automatically.

“He drinks on good days too.” Cas pointed out. “And most days in between.”

Sam sighed, “Yeah. But it’s worse on bad days.”

Cas frowned at that, studying the inside of his glass. Sam took a sip from his own, feeling the smooth burn slide down his throat.

“Have you tried talking to him about it?” Cas asked tentatively.

Sam scoffed, “Sure. Have _you_ tried talking to Dean about something he doesn’t want to talk about?”

Cas’ lips pursed in response.

Sam took another swallow of his drink. “He’s a hunter, Cas, he needs something. We all need something. Dean drinks, I run, you binge Netflix. We all need a way to forget. The amount we lose, the parts of ourselves that we've given up, that we’ll never get back; those things will haunt us forever. We just need a break every once in a while or we’ll lose our minds.”

“Dean’s ‘break’ is killing him,” Cas said angrily, setting his glass down probably harder than he meant to, the whole table shuddered.

Sam raised an eyebrow, “Is it? Are you letting it?”

Cas flushed and Sam did his best to hide a smile.

“And Dean hasn’t noticed because he always feels that way around you.”

Castiel flushed harder. Sam chuckled and then sobered, glancing at the door and then back into his own glass, how many of these had Dean downed already? Was he halfway through a bottle yet? It would take at least two to knock him out.

“I hate it too. Trust me, I hate it as much as you do. The amount of times I’ve found him on the ground, had to make him throw up, debated risking a broken jaw to take him to the damn hospital, or force him into rehab… but it wouldn’t work, Cas. He doesn’t _want_ to stop. He knows it’s a crutch and he just keeps leaning because it’s all he knows how to do.”

He lifted his eyes to the angel with a wan smile. “You know, when he’s drinking, when he’s drunk, like doesn’t-know-where-he-is-or-who-he’s-taking-a-swing-at drunk, it’s the only time he’s ever reminded me of Dad.”

The words hurt leaving his throat. They felt like a betrayal. Because Dean was nothing like John, _nothing_, except in this.

Cas looked as upset as Sam felt at those words.

In silence they finished their drinks and resigned themselves to standing vigil. Together, without speaking, they moved to the kitchen, where they’d be in earshot if Dean shouted, or if Cas heard something concerning.

Sam understood addiction. He knew it intimately, and he also knew Dean. He knew that Dean stood no chance of making it through any kind of withdrawal process unless he wanted it for himself. He couldn’t quit because he knew Sam and Cas were worried, he had to want it. And Dean… didn’t. At least not now. His coping process was precarious at best, and with their daily lives and the dangers they faced on a regular basis... Dean knew his limits as they were, the slightest shift could spell danger for all of them. As much as he hated it, it was _safer_ to do nothing.

Sam liked to think that if they ever had a stretch of time where they could guarantee no apocalypses or universe curveballs that Dean would begin to seriously consider it, but that was probably wishful thinking. In reality, he knew he was being a coward. The main reason he hadn't talked to Dean about it, _really_ talked to him about it, was because Sam was terrified of seeing the look in his brother's eyes when he realised that Sam and Cas had thought about this, that they'd talked about this. He didn't want to see Dean crumble like that, didn't want to force him into admitting something that he might not be ready to face. Sam would rather have the apocalypse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So what do you think?
> 
> I may have dropped a little towards the end there, this one fic a day thing isn't leaving much time for editing or re-writing unfortunately, though when this whole thing's done I'm hoping re-visit and update them all, fix typos and improve etc.
> 
> If you want to come and find me on Tumblr, you can find me [here](https://tibbinswrites.tumblr.com/)
> 
> Thanks for sticking with me!
> 
> Love Tibbins xx


	9. Baby

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 9 - Baby - A glimpse under the hood.

She was in motion, as she so often was, driving along monotonous asphalt, her gas pedal pushed down almost to the floor despite the fact that they needed her headlights on full beam. Her boys were on a case.

It must have a time limit too if Dean was pushing her so hard. Someone was in danger. But it wasn’t family, or the scant inch between the pedal and the floor wouldn’t be there.

They’d been in a strange town for a few days, stopping outside various houses while her boys took a few badges from her glove compartment and, wearing the suits that Dean disliked so much, got out.

She would pick up snatches of their conversation if they stayed outside, but more often she was left in the quiet on the curb. She allowed herself to settle there, a few groans and pops escaping her as she took a break from the long drives her boys favoured, she wasn’t as young as she used to be after all. She didn’t feel old though; she had passed cars, newer models than she, that looked to be on the brink of falling apart, cars spotted with mud and rust, cars that wheezed and rattled and coughed out plumes of sick-smelling exhaust.

She had a rattle too, of course, but it was one that she was proud of. Her rattle was proof that she had carried her boys since they were young enough to think sticking little plastic blocks in her vents was a good idea. It had annoyed her at the time, as had the little green soldier stuck in the holder of one of her back doors and she hadn’t enjoyed the carving either, but now she thought of them fondly. These things made her special, these things made her Baby.

It was Dean who had first given her the name, though not until his late teens when he would sneak her keys and take her out to impress the local girls. He’d talk to her sometimes, asking her to help him get laid, urging her to stay quiet so she wouldn’t wake John. It was during these talks that he’d call her Baby.

Now, Dean pulled her to a squealing stop outside a warehouse, flipping off her lights and he, Sam and the angel Cas all jumped out, rummaged through her trunk and headed inside without so much as a backwards glance or a fond pat.

Baby didn’t mind this. She knew a more spiteful car would turn over a couple of times before starting the next time they needed a quick getaway (she’d done that once or twice, it was fun to watch them panic while she knew full well that she would see them safely out of whatever dire situation they’d gotten into, some of their dramatics had apparently rubbed off on her over the years) but she knew that she was spoilt by Dean's usual attentions and chose to be proud of them instead, knowing that whatever they were doing was important, that they were saving people.

They came out a quarter of an hour later, Cas carrying an unconscious, bloodied woman. They laid her gently in her backseat, her head resting against the angel’s thigh, her breathing already eased. Cas would heal the victims of their worst injuries, but keep enough so that it wouldn’t raise suspicion when they dropped them off at the nearest hospital. Baby disliked the feeling of blood on her upholstery, a feeling she was unfortunately accustomed to, but she knew it was a petty concern to have, so she dutifully tried to keep from jostling too much when they passed over speed bumps or potholes.

Sam took the woman into the ER as he was the best at being able to charm his way in and out while dodging as many questions as he could and he was back within minutes, Dean had her out of the parking lot seconds later and then they were on their way home.

Home for Baby was wherever she was parked. Of course, home for her was her boys squabbling over the music or munching on snacks that got crumbs in all her crevices. Home for her was when they parked her in a field late at night and then lay on her hood, watching the stars, but in the past few years, home had become her spot in the garage of what her boys called ‘the bunker’. She liked it there. It was familiar and safe and the temperature was carefully controlled and although she was surrounded by other vehicles, and Dean sometimes came in to tinker or take one out for a test drive, it was always her that he came running to when they had a case or when he was angry or upset and just needed to drive. She calmed him, she knew, and she took a fierce pride in that.

When she’d been hit by that semi she’d thought she was done. She’d been sure the owner of the salvage yard she’d been towed to would have her gutted and crushed into a cube, but no. Dean had saved her. Dean had pulled out her dents and fitted her with new parts and yes, okay, he’d also beaten her with a tyre iron but then he’d fixed that too. He’d spent _months_ making her work again, capable of first spluttering, then groaning, then struggling, then purring just as she had used to. He’d taken her for slow laps of the house, listening to her troubles and one by one taking them away.

She didn’t think she could be grateful, and yet she was. He had made her _perfect_ again, dropping the plastic blocks back into her vents, re-fitting the green soldier, bringing his brother to touch up the carving of their initials. 

Of course, not everything was great for her. She’d been taken by people other than her boys before, not all of them living humans, that had been uncomfortable. She’d been scratched, shot, driven through a house (though she had to respect Sam’s gall for that one) and through signs and other places she was not supposed to go; she’d been dented and marked and flipped over and worst of all, she’d been left under a tarp for _months_, all the while Dean had _needed_ her and she had been _right there_.

It had hurt, though ‘hurt’ was the wrong word of course, she didn’t feel pain. But she had _wanted_, she had wanted to be useful again, for Dean to pop open her hood, rub his hands together and ask her how she was doing today. She’d wanted to hold him in her driver’s seat, feel him pat the dashboard and know that he was okay because he was with her and she would keep him safe.

Being without that had been hard.

Dean was the very first of her boys. John had been a nice owner; he had treated her with respect and taken good care of her, especially before the mother, Mary, had died. Dean had learned his mechanical skills _somewhere_ after all, but she had never warmed to his father the same. John had been fond of her, but Dean loved her, and once she had felt the difference, everything before was background noise. It had taken her a while to realise why she began to act up for John. Sometimes her gears would stick, her engine would splutter and her heater would refuse to turn on in mid-winter. When she hadn't had Dean and little Sammy in her backseat for a while she would sulk, wondering where they were, if they were alright, why John was here, cutting up newspaper clippings on her hood when her boys were somewhere else. She wouldn't even be mad if Sammy puked up on her leather, or if Dean pressed sticky fingers against her window, they should be _here_, where she could keep them safe.

It didn't help John's case that the next time Dean settled in a seat, he was lighter.

The years passed and her boys grew, and kept growing in Sam's case. And John's trips got longer, but when Dean was around fifteen he began to join them on short ones. These trips never lasted longer than three days because they had to get back to Sammy, though why John's urgency hadn't been the same when _Dean_ had been twelve Baby couldn't understand, but she never pulled her little stunts when Dean was around, she thought that he had already had more than his fair share of discomfort judging by some of the motels she'd been parked in front of. She became more sure of it when the small scrapes and bruises he'd end up with became sprains and cracked ribs, and there were always more bruises, even before they'd found whatever monster they'd been out looking for in the first place.

Baby didn't like to dwell on those days; she preferred the ones that came later, the ones that were _now_, with Dean at her wheel and Sam's too-long legs propped on her dash and Cas pleasantly settled in the back. She liked that Dean and Sam never had to worry about a drive to the hospital because Cas was there, she liked that Cas had learned how to lean into her rather than perch on the edge of her seat as he discovered what comfort was, she liked that they had found each other, that they looked after each other in more ways than just basic maintenance; the four of them together had ticked up the number of her odometer battling the impossible, outrunning the apocalypse, chasing freedom. They had a destination and a purpose and she knew that she would be content to belong to these humans (even if one was an angel) for as long as they could keep each other running.

In the end, it would always come back to them, to Baby and her boys.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What did you think? Writing from a car's perspective is hard and I hope I did her justice because I love Baby.
> 
> All opinions and feedback is welcome and in fact begged for :P
> 
> If you like, I'm on [Tumblr here](https://tibbinswrites.tumblr.com/)
> 
> Love Tibbins xx


	10. Season 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 10 - Season 15 - I've gone for Billie's perspective on this one.

Billie stalked through her bookshelves, trailing her fingers over the spines of books she passed. _Were they empty yet?_ she wondered. They would be soon, or at the very least changed, all of them.

She was angry, no, scratch that, she was _furious_. The absolute _gall_ of the Creator to kick like a petulant toddler at all of the precarious systems that allowed this world to function. The Empty, Heaven, Hell, Purgatory, the Veil, not of the world but essential to it; all of them in turmoil, ignored or exacerbated by the one who called Himself God.

He wanted to erase everything, tear it all down just so He could make something new spring from the ashes that would be less _difficult_, something that would follow His storyline. He fancied Himself a writer, the greatest writer, but Billie had read a fair few books in her time and to her mind, dismissing pre-established laws of the universe you'd made was just plain sloppy.

She passed through the G and H sections quickly, _feeling_ it as all those possible deaths shifted, warping into a narrative that didn’t belong, that had no right to be. All those choices bleeding out from the pages until all that was left was His story.

It was all a part of God’s plan, wasn’t that what people of faith said? Everything that would ever happen mapped out in neat little lines to form something bigger. For the first time, that was true.

There had always been a larger picture, of course, something Billie had only truly come to appreciate after her promotion. Some events were fixed in time, momentous, vital to shaping the next step of humanity; that’s where the sisters of Fate had had their place, but the idea that every individual’s suffering had a purpose? Bullshit. Her time as a reaper had taught her that much.

Chuck had built this world on _possibility_, on free will, on the idea that people had at least some measure of control over their own lives. He wasn’t there to babysit, after all, He was there to _observe_, and already knowing the outcome must have been too dull. But how to give these humans autonomy so that they could be watched or ignored as their Creator wished? The angels had their grace, of course, but most human bodies were not compatible with such a thing, and grace was better for groups, not individuals.

The solution had been souls, and thus, He began His own downfall; for in creating this thing that was independent of Him, that would grow and change and shape with the human it belonged to, He had created something bigger than Himself, something that could no longer be manipulated, not even by Him. He could still control bodies, impress emotions, but He no longer had any power over a human’s soul.

Which was why He needed the other planes. The Empty was the oldest of them, angels had existed before anything else and Heaven and Hell had been built by them, but as soon as there was life, there was also Death to stalk it, as soon as there were humans, there were reapers to shepherd them to whichever afterlife they had earned. The Veil had been created for those who refused—Chuck's first hint that souls were more powerful than He had probably intended—and as soon as there were monsters, there was Purgatory, the garbage dump for creatures without souls that had been deemed unworthy of either salvation or damnation.

This was the system the world was founded on, and it was bigger than one deity with an inflated ego. All those prayers and praises must have gone straight to His overfluffed head. Nobody ever prayed to Death, though she would argue that she had been more generous by far. It wasn’t _her_ wrath that had levelled cities or sent plagues, she had only been cleaning up the mess, with a different face, of course.

She finally stopped outside the Ws and looked at the books for Sam and Dean Winchester, possibly the only two humans left out of the purge currently happening. They were Chuck’s favourites after all, and although He wanted them dead, Billie was also certain that He wanted to draw it out. She pulled the books from the shelf and placed them on the nearest desk. She would not read them now, she wanted to _see_.

She blinked and suddenly she was in a graveyard, the sky was unnaturally dark, lit by flashes of red that flared out from large cracks in the earth; a portal to Hell, she could sense the souls escaping from their assigned places. She gritted her teeth and gripped her scythe. Returning the souls would have to wait. For now she watched two men and an angel stand together, gripping their makeshift weapons at the beginning of the apocalypse, and she waited for them to surprise her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So what do you think? 
> 
> I'm not sure I did my idea justice but I'm happy with at least some of it. Curse these time constraints!
> 
> Though Suptober is doing wonders for my motivation, writing every day is definitely a good habit to get into, even better if I can write something coherent xD
> 
> Come find me on [Tumblr](https://tibbinswrites.tumblr.com/)!
> 
> Love Tibbins xx


	11. Weapons

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 11 - Weapons - Dean makes an inventory.

Dean straightened to survey the haul laid out on the groaning table. They had quite a spread here. Blades of all kinds, long and short, curved and straight, silver, gold, bronze, angel, the demon-killing-knife, some crusted with lamb's blood, others blessed by a priest, others still with their own little quirks for whatever specific monster needed gutting.

Then there were the guns: shotguns and pistols, modern and classic, the colt of course was still a useless lump of half-melted metal, but the God gun was there. Dean reached out a finger and touched the grip, he was pretty sure that _that_ was going to be the one to use, though Sam would not be happy about it when the time came.

There were boxes upon boxes of bullets, some commercial, most of them painstakingly made by hand: silver, witch-killing, devil's trap, angel. Cas had insisted on making the latter himself, non-too-pleased about melting down the blades of his siblings to be used on his siblings, not that there were many more of those around.

There was his beauty in pride of place, of course, even if the grenade launcher would probably be useless against a deity, he'd be willing to bet she could still be a hell of a distraction.

There were other weapons too: curse boxes and spell books, small knives that could be tucked into sleeves or thrown, those magic knuckle-dusters and all the other things they'd managed to salvage from the Men of Letters' tech, Enochian cuffs, bottles of borax. There were simpler things too, a baseball bat wrapped with barbed wire, flare guns, flasks of holy water, bottles of salt and dead man's blood, iron crowbars, lighters and a couple tanks of gasoline, just like old times.

Combined, all this should be enough to take out the whole of Purgatory, but Dean doubted that anything but the God gun would even make a dent. He looked over at Sam and Cas, who were also looking over the table with equally grim expressions, clearly the same thought had struck them too, considering the way Sam's eyes kept sliding back to the God gun, and the way Cas' avoided it.

Yeah, things were pretty dire right now. They had God to kill and very limited options. But then Dean remembered Cas going toe-to-toe with five of his brethren, carving a banishing sigil into his own chest in order to give _them_ time to save Adam, he remembered stopping Amara with words, not weapons, he remembered Sammy overpowering _Lucifer_ to throw himself into the Pit. He remembered countless fights they'd won while unarmed or disadvantaged, he remembered shooting Azazel in the face, he remembered slicing his way through Purgatory when he'd arived there with only a blade barely one step up from a butter knife. He remembered Cas glowing, yelling for them to shut their eyes as he smote a diner full of jefferson starships. He remembered being lost outside a military base with his brother and reminding their pursuers that _they_ were the ones who should be afraid.

He grinned at the two men across the table, ignoring their confusion. They could do this; if there was a way at all then they would find it, because they were weapons in and of themselves, the most dangerous that had ever been forged.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So what do you think? Please no spoilers for the first episode! I won't be able to watch it until after work.
> 
> As always, you can find me on Tumblr [here](https://tibbinswrites.tumblr.com/).
> 
> Love Tibbins xx


	12. RIP

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 12 - R.I.P. - Cas has had enough. Warnings for angst and some swearing and spoilers for 15x01

Dean was watching Castiel’s love for him die in real time. Every aborted attempt at a conversation, every barked order, every sign of impatience at Cas’ disgust for the demon currently making snark come out of Jack’s mouth and Cas’ eyes darkened a little more, his anger grew more spines, and his glare was a little less ‘if looks could kill’ and a little more like he almost wished they could.

It was his own fault, of course. It always was. Cas was _trying_ dammit, Dean could see him trying. When Dean had approached him as Sam escorted that mom and kid inside the school, he’d seen the relief in those blue eyes, the immediate softening; Cas _wanted _to talk, to fight. He wanted them to end up screaming at each other until they were both drained and empty. He wanted rid of this horrific tension that was keeping them as taut as bowstrings about to loose an arrow, but Dean was too scared to hear it, and he was even more afraid of whatever he might end up saying in the heat of the argument. He couldn’t bear to watch the last of whatever affection Cas still held for him blink out.

It was going to happen anyway at this rate though, Dean considered as he snapped at Cas, _again,_ for something completely innocuous and Cas snapped back with even more bite; maybe it would have hurt less to get it all over with. It had been two days now and they were all tense, any minute the real FBI would show up and their cover with the townspeople would be blown, ghosts would be ‘officially’ discovered and none of them had any idea what to do next. Belphagor wasn’t making things any better, wandering around with those damned glasses on, ‘blending’ and giving Dean a nasty lurch in his gut every time he saw Jack’s form out of the corner of his eye. He didn’t want to think about what it was doing to Cas.

Sam was giving him a wide berth too, brotherly instinct telling him that if they got into a fight right now it could screw up their ability to work together, and they needed to work together if they stood any chance at all of saving this town let alone the world. Sam’s theory that God had up and left them for good was a comforting one, but Dean didn’t really believe it. Chuck had got too invested in this place, in _them,_ to not want to watch the whole thing implode. Still, it’s not as though they had any kind of plan for that either so taking things one problem at a time was the smart thing to do.

Also, ifthe brothers _did_ end up fighting, there was no way Cas would be on his side this time.

***

Dean patrolled the border around town, watching ghosts appear and vanish on the other side of the line; some he recognised, others he didn’t. How they were going to get rid of them if all the doors in Hell were still open was beyond him. If they found and burned some bones what was stopping them from just… coming back? Also, he was pretty sure that the clown hadn’t been a ghost when they’d fought it the first time. Hadn’t it been a Hindu creature? A rasa- something? Or was he mixing up his cases? Didn’t things like that end up in Purgatory rather than Hell? Or had God ripped open those doors too?

He had no idea. The clown just laughed at him, until he fired a round of rock salt into its chest.

“Is that wise?” Cas said from behind him, “Antagonising them?” He came to step up beside Dean, watching as the clown flickered back into this plane and leered at them.

“They already want to kill us, what does it matter?”

Cas said nothing to that, but turned away from the perimeter with a sense of purpose and started walking.

“We need to talk.” He called over his shoulder.

“You really think now’s the time for a heart-to-heart?” Dean complained, but he followed anyway. Patrol was less a necessary precaution and more just a chance for Dean to get away from all the people looking to him for answers or protection or orders or _something_. Sam seemed to thrive with that kind of thing but despite the fact that Dean was usually the one who inspired followers he was no real leader, and it was only now that people were starting to realise it.

“I’m not sure that’s possible seeing as you seem to have misplaced yours.” Cas retorted sharply. “Metaphorically, of course.”

He didn’t walk far from the perimeter, but far enough not to be overheard by any lingering spirits. He actually took them _into_ one of the now-abandoned houses, though he was pretty sure Sam was going to start moving people who already lived inside of the magic line back to their homes to make more room for those who had been ousted. Dean closed the door behind him and turned back to see Cas waiting for him in the hallway. Dean felt a pang of _something _at the sight.

“Are we going to have a domestic now?” Dean asked, trying to keep his voice as nonchalant as possible and, at least to his mind, failing.

Cas ignored his comment, his fingers were curling and relaxing at his sides and his jaw worked, but no words escaped him. There was something in his eyes that spoke of fear.

“Well, out with it,” Dean snapped, his patience failing him. “You said we needed to talk but you’re not saying anything.”

Cas swallowed, cleared his throat, swallowed again, and then said, without looking at him, “I’m done.”

“Gee, that sure cleared things up. Good talk.” Dean said, making to turn for the door with a roll of his eyes.

“I’m done fighting for you.”

“What?” The words were so soft, Dean couldn’t have heard them right. “What are you talking about?”

Cas’ tongue darted out to wet his lips and he said again, a little louder. “I said, I can’t fight for you anymore.” His eyes came up to lock onto Dean’s. “I’m done.”

Dean was dumbstruck. For a few seconds he just gaped at the angel, then he said, “so, what? You’re just going to take off and leave me and Sam to deal with… whatever the fuck we’ll be dealing with?”

“That’s not what I said,” Cas said, a sharpness to his tone now. “Of course, I will stay and fight for this world, but I will no longer fight for you. You seem intent on pushing me away and honestly I don’t even know why you’re supposed to be mad at me. For trying to protect my son? For not thinking that he was capable of the awful thing he did? For not trusting the _demon_ currently parading around in his corpse?”

Cas took a moment then to collect himself and Dean still couldn’t think of a damn thing to say.

“I have always seen the beauty of your soul when I looked at you,” Cas continued, his eyes mournful. “I’ve always seen your strength, your compassion, your capacity to love and I could ignore your flaws because there were more important things that I could focus on.”

“Get to the point,” Dean said in a clipped tone, his voice too harsh, too uncaring. He heard the echo of the Dean from that 2014 that never was and he hated himself for it.

“My point,” Cas said slowly, delicately tapping the words from his tongue, “is that this friendship stopped being a friendship a long time ago and I’ve only just realised. There were moments I suspected… but there were other moments to offset that realisation. Now… I have nothing left to give you, Dean. I won’t grovel for a place your side; if you don’t think I’ve earned one by now then you can stand alone.”

And then Cas was walking away, heading for the back door, and Dean was _letting _him. Why was he letting him?

“Look, Cas,” Dean tried, but his tone was all wrong, too confrontational and he didn’t know how _that_ had happened, but it was too late and he had to keep going because Cas was _leaving_, Cas was _giving up _on him and Dean was trying to fight down the hornet’s nest in his stomach. “You don’t understand-”

“DON’T TALK DOWN TO ME!” Cas yelled, whirling around, his hands balled tight and shaking as he advanced on Dean, who could only stand there in shock at this rapid change of mood. “I know over seven thousand languages; they were programmed into me, word by word, gesture by gesture, definition by definition, so when you belittle me, patronise me, demand things of me, I understand. When you tell me that you don’t need me, that I should follow your orders or get out, I understand. When I’m no longer useful to you and you tell me that I can’t stay, I understand. When you say that I’m dead to you, you are making yourself perfectly clear. It’s not _me_ that doesn’t understand, Dean. Maybe you misunderstood just how far I would bend.”

And with that he shoved Dean aside and grasped at the doorknob, opening the door to let the sickeningly pleasant light of day bounce on the pale yellow walls, only interrupted for a second by a large shadow that hesitated in the doorway.

“You might get lucky. Maybe by the end of all this I really will be dead to you. Problem solved.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Phew, so posted with an hour left of the day, this one was a struggle, I have to admit. And I'm not super sure it's finished but it will have to do for now.
> 
> Thoughts?
> 
> If you have a question about this fic of any of my fics or if you just want to chat, you can find me on Tumblr [here](https://tibbinswrites.tumblr.com/%22)
> 
> Love Tibbins xx


	13. Ladies

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 13 - Ladies - A family dinner is interrupted.

Jody had just sat down to dinner when the phone rang. Claire hid a smirk behind her hand as Jody rolled her whole head along with her eyes to glare at the phone; it was a movement Claire had seen in Cas before, apparently a trait in her parent-figures.

Jody grumbled and pushed back from the table to stand. Donna took the opportunity to sneak some of Jody's cubes of potato with a wink at her, Patience and Alex. Donna was over for dinner a lot these days, stayed over some nights too. Not that Claire minded. She liked Donna, how could she not? She was just so… peppy. On anyone else, that kind of unending enthusiasm would make Claire want to punch them in the face but on Donna it just made sense.

Jody had made meatloaf for dinner. It was a special occasion after all, this was the first night in three months that they'd all been free together. Claire had got back from a hunt just last week and had been able to witness the chaos: everyone grabbing at slices of toast popping out of the toaster, one person (usually Claire) lounging on the sofa with nowhere to be, people banging loudly on the bathroom door, making their case as to why _they_ needed to use the shower first.

Jody and Donna's shifts had been all over the place lately, overlapping just enough that Claire had barely seen either of them for more than ten minutes at a time.

Patience had like four study groups and a billion different sports clubs that kept her either out of the house, or taking over the dining table with her nerd friends.

Alex was almost always at work; sometimes, when Claire was bored and needed company, she would go out there with sandwiches and soda and Alex would smile and, if she wasn't immediately busy saving a life, she'd call a break and they'd go to the canteen. If it was open, Claire would buy a sausage roll or a cup of soup, something hot that would be a lot nicer than boring old sandwiches, but Alex would always eat them first, or dip the sandwich in the soup, which Claire would make a face at, though she would secretly be pleased.

As a result, Claire was often on her own in the house. Usually she didn't mind too much, but the extended periods of isolation were getting to her lately. She couldn't show up at the hospital too often or Alex would start to worry, and everyone was just so busy and it's not like she had a _reason_ to go out looking for… comfort or whatever. Just… sometimes her mind would start to wander and she'd think of Kaia and- and that would suck.

She stabbed a piece of carrot with her fork and nibbled on the end, though she knew that none of them, not even Donna, would even touch the meatloaf until Jody was sat back down at the table.

"Sheriff Mills?" Jody said into the phone, her back to them. Then, "Oh, heya Sam. What's up?"

Immediately, a ripple of tension went around the table and every eye turned to Jody. Last they had heard, things had been started to turn sour with the kid they'd taken in, Jack, the devil's son, and they were all worried about him. If the call was social, Jody would tell Sam she'd call back later, if not…

"Huh. Well no kidding."

Alex stood and went to fetch the 'hunting' first aid kit in the kitchen while Patience went for the tupperware. Donna started gathering the plates together, scraping like foods onto their own plates. Claire headed for the stairs to grab all of their go-bags, a duffel under each of their beds. Even Alex had one and Claire grabbed that too. Alex probably wouldn't want to come, but her duffel had more complex medical supplies than the rest of them, things that could come in handy in a bind, even without a registered nurse wielding them. They were heavy, each had a few sets of clothes and toiletries and all the basic stuff, plus salt, an iron crowbar and a selection of blades in each one.

She clanked down the stairs with the bags. Patience was shrugging on her coat at the bottom and took two of the bags from her, swinging them onto her shoulders.

"I didn't think this was your thing." Claire said quietly.

Patience grimaced and looked over at Jody. "Sounds important. You might need a psychic."

Donna and Alex were filling a plastic bag with the boxed up food, though there were still a few portions left. Alex wasn't joining them then. Claire tried not to be too disappointed. Alex's job was important and she could get into serious trouble if there was any kind of screw-up with the law and she was caught with the smuggled medical equipment in their go-bags. Not that she had smuggled it for them, Jody would never have asked her to compromise herself like that, but they _had_ got it from Alex's hospital, so Claire knew how it would look.

Jody was still on the phone, facing away from them, apparently oblivious to the activity going on behind her. "Oh Sam, I- I'm so sorry," she was saying and Claire froze. She knew that tone, someone was dead, someone important, but it wasn't Dean or Jody would be more upset, and it wasn't Cas… it wasn't Cas because Jody would turn to look at her.

"Of course," Jody said. "I'll be there… Now don't you try and talk me down, Sam, you could use the extra hands and you know it. Just… be careful until I get there, alright? Keep an eye on your brother for me, and Cas. Yeah… yeah, watch out for ghosts, I got it. Alright. Take care, Sam."

Jody hung up with a click and took a deep, steadying breath.

"I'm really sorry about dinner, girls, but I've gotta-" She stopped as she turned to see them all, Claire and Patience by the door with the go-bags, Alex digging behind the couch for her stack of lore books that she'd move within easy reach in case they called, Donna holding the keys for her truck in one hand and the bag of food in the other. Jody blinked at them and then a slow grin spread across her face.

"Well, ladies. It looks like the world's ending in Kansas. Whaddaya say we go save it?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Awww yeah, I love me these women! I don't think I've ever written in Claire's perspective before so this was really fun for me.
> 
> All feedback and concrit is welcome and appreciated.
> 
> [Tumblr me](https://tibbinswrites.tumblr.com/) ^_^
> 
> Love Tibbins xx


	14. Fire

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 14 - Fire - Dean takes a little trip down memory lane, back to November 2nd 1983 in fact. This one is rather angsty.

It was funny, Dean thought, how the memory of the night his mother died (the first time) stayed diamond sharp in his mind. Especially when other things began to fade, more important things like her laugh, how he’d feel when she hugged him, the way her hair tickled his nose. Those things had come back with her, of course, and he was grateful for the reminder now, when he found himself mourning her again and those things were a paper-thin barrier to hold back the memory of her first death. And his, if he was gonna be melodramatic about it.

Dean paced around the school, checking supplies, making a back-up salt circle around the building just in case, and avoiding people.

He missed her. It seems he’d spent his whole life missing her. Four happy years was all he got, and then four more later on, during which time he’d kicked her out, lost her to another world for several months and had to deal with a whole load of other crap so the time they’d actually gotten together was less than he would have liked and more fraught.

Her final death was objectively the worse one; it was still raw, and caused not by a demon or some other creature but by _Jack_, a kid he’d come to care for, despite his best efforts at the beginning. She’d been killed by family, and he wasn’t sure his brain was processing that right. It was also worse because he’d had time to actually get to know and love _Mary_, not just the vague notion of his mom, the few snatches of softness and kind words that he’d clung to as a kid. He'd come to love her fierceness, her stubbornness, her refusal to compromise if she knew what she wanted, he loved her kindness and her patience and the way she was so eager to learn about all the technology and food and places that his modern world had to offer.

Even knowing that, it wasn’t the weight of Mary’s body in his arms that haunted him, it wasn’t all the things they’d never do, or the things they never said. It was the smell of her funeral pyre, and how familiar that stench was.

Xxx

Dean had woken in the dark with a horrible smell in his nose. There was an immediate jolt of panic before he settled again, looking out through the gap in his curtains and seeing the moon calmly hanging there, just like it should be. He frowned, still sleepy, and then sniffed. Maybe he’d dreamed the smell and now it wouldn’t go away because he was thinking about it too hard. He rubbed at his nose and sniffed again, sitting up a bit higher in the bed, then he coughed. It smelled like that time Mommy had left bacon in the pan for too long. Why would Mommy be cooking bacon so late?

Maybe he was getting sick, he thought as he coughed again. His throat was scratchy and he felt too warm. He reached for the cup of water next to his bed and took a drink. It helped a little. Then he lay back down and tried to ignore the smell. It would be gone in the morning, he was sure of it.

It was then that he heard his father’s voice. Loud, too loud for how late it was. Why was Daddy yelling? Didn’t he know that he might wake Sammy?

Curiosity overcoming his sleepiness, Dean slipped out of bed and padded across the room. There was a line of light under his door. The light was flickering, like it did when he pushed a chair under the light switch to stand on so he could turn it on and off really fast. Was Mommy playing with the light switch? Was that why Daddy was mad?

Dean reached for the door and opened it; a blast of heat and smoke almost knocked him backwards. Fire… there was a _fire!_

The whole hallway was hazy with smoke and Dean coughed as he left the safety of his room, his eyes stinging. Sammy’s door was open, it was the only one that was, so he made his way towards it.

“Mommy!” He yelled, more scared than he’d ever been in his whole life, his house was on fire and he was alone and he could barely hear his own voice over the roar of the flames. “Daddy!”

He almost ran into his father outside Sammy’s room and in the split-second before he was noticed, Dean saw through the open door. The whole room was bright and loud but he could barely see Sammy’s cot; the ceiling was swallowed up in yellow and orange and there was a shape up there too, where the flames and the smell were coming from. He knew that shape; that shape had kissed him goodnight only a little while ago, told him that angels were watching over him. How she was on the ceiling or why she was on fire, those were questions that came later, not that he’d be able to voice them for a long time; in the moment, he only wondered where the angels were.

Then John stumbled backwards and spun, saw Dean and pressed Sammy into his arms.

“Take your brother outside as fast as you can, don’t look back!”

John was yelling, but he didn’t sound angry, he sounded… scared. That couldn’t be right; his daddy _never_ got scared, not even when there was a huge spider in the bathtub, or when a wasp stung him right on the arm, he hadn’t been scared then. Seeing his daddy as afraid as he was might have been the scariest thing of all. “Now, Dean! Go!”

Dean turned and ran, his eyes streaming for more reasons than the smoke; Sammy started to squirm and Dean was scared he was going to drop him. He’d never held Sammy all on his own before, Mommy was always there, holding them both at the same time, making sure that Dean was supporting his head properly, keeping them both safe. But Mommy wasn’t here right now, and Daddy had to get her off the ceiling, and he had _told _Dean to get Sammy outside. But it was hard to see and he kept coughing into Sammy’s blankets and he started to feel dizzy and he got to the top of the stairs and stopped, because he couldn’t hold onto the banister without letting go of Sammy, but his legs were wobbly and he wasn’t sure he should run down the stairs carrying his little brother.

A crash from behind, probably the nursery roof caving in he realised later, decided for him and he tottered down the stairs and quickly and as carefully as he could. He knew he was jostling Sammy more than he liked because he was starting to cry now. Where was Mommy? She would always take Sammy back when he cried.

He emerged into the night air, dewy grass soaking his feet and the hems of his pajama pants, great sobs heaving out of him. He stopped in the garden. He was outside, he made it. And now he didn’t know what to do. Where had Daddy gone? He looked around. There were people on the street, all of them staring at him and at his house with horrified eyes, but none of them came forward to tell him where his daddy was. Sammy had settled in his arms again now that he was no longer running, but he was heavy and Dean's arms were starting to ache.

Cold slammed into him then, and dizziness, like when he got out of a bath that had been a little too hot. He looked up at his house. At his home. Fire belched from Sammy’s window and he knew suddenly, instinctively, that his mother wasn’t coming out.

Something grabbed him by the waist then and lifted, sprinting forward towards where the car was parked on the street.

“I gotcha,” John said, just as a huge roar seemed to come from the house. His father stumbled forwards as he ran before placing his shivering son down on the the grass next to the car and taking the baby from his arms.

Dean stood there then, staring up at what had been his home, his mother; knowing that they were gone and not knowing why. He was cold, everything smelled of smoke and his throat was sore. He didn’t move while his dad walked around with Sam to soothe him, or when he draped a blanket around Dean’s shoulders. He only moved when a real red fire truck parked outside his house, but that was because an ambulance was there too and he was being guided into the back with his father’s hand steady on his shoulder.

He was asked questions that he couldn’t answer, not even when Daddy asked him if he was hurt, the fire had burned out his voice.

Xxx

Dean hadn’t spoken for nearly half a year after that. He’d tip-toed around, trying to be as quiet as possible, though he hadn’t been sure what he was hiding from, and he’d never played with light switches again.

Dean sighed as he counted the cans of condensed milk and made a note before putting the clipboard down and raising a hand to his stinging eyes.

_Why_ did that night keep coming back when the night he’d spent burning his mother himself was fuzzy at best?

_Because you drank half your weight in whiskey that night, no wonder you don’t remember it._

Maybe it was as simple as that. Maybe he’d just pickled his brain enough that the two events were bleeding into one grief.

After all, he wasn’t four years old any more, and he knew perfectly well the limitations of guardian angels.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So what do you think?
> 
> I'm not entirely happy with the ending but I'm hoping I did the main bit justice at least. :)
> 
> I'm on Tumblr [here](https://tibbinswrites.tumblr.com/).
> 
> All thoughts and concrit is appreciated and desired.
> 
> Thank you all so much for sticking with me ^_^
> 
> Love Tibbins xx


	15. Led Zeppelin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 15 - Led Zeppelin - Castiel deals with some of his grief - another angsty fic for you I'm afraid, also, spoilers for 15x01 if you haven't seen it yet.

Castiel sat in the passenger seat of the stationary impala, twisting a cassette tape in his hands. As far as he could tell, this was the only place he could actually _play_ a cassette tape within reach of the protective salt line that the demon… _Belph__e__gor_ had made. His fist closed over the little plastic rectangle when he thought of that creature using his son’s corpse as a meat suit. He almost got out of the car and hurled it as far as he could, or crushed it in his hand or yanked out the tape song by song until all that was left was silence. 

He was so _angry_ at Dean, for not being more angry, for not looking disgusted whenever the demon spoke using Jack’s voice or walked around using Jack’s legs. Had he been lying about caring for Jack this whole time? Or was he secretly glad that the boy who had killed his mother was being defiled even in death? Did this speak of justice to the Righteous Man?

Castiel took in a shuddering breath and let it out just as painfully. Why did it hurt so much? The demon had proven useful so far. Sam had called it a ‘necessary evil’, though he hadn’t been able to look Castiel in the eyes as he’d said it. At least Sam seemed to find it as disturbing as he did, he wasn’t _alone_ in his grief, he just… he’d feel it less if Dean showed any signs of feeling it too.

Castiel slipped the tape into the deck and pushed play. _Ramble On_ was the first song on the tape, probably the most fitting summation of the Winchesters’ lives.

He wasn’t sure why he carried the tape around with him rather than leaving it in his car, though if he _had_ left it in his car then he wouldn’t be able to listen to it now. Exactly why he had the urge to listen to it now he didn’t know either, except that it made him feel closer to Dean, or at least, the version of Dean that might care that he was grieving and hurt and angry, the Dean that would place a grounding hand to his shoulder, or just sit in solemn silence with him, not the Dean who was inside the school somewhere and would only snap at him or give him a task to complete or ignore him completely.

The song faded over to _In My Time of Dying _and Castiel reached to press the fast forward button, he was far too raw to listen someone asking God for a spare pair of wings, as though God wasn’t the one burning them away in the first place.

Castiel sniffed and pressed play, then re-wind, then play again to get it to the beginning of the next song, _When the Levee Breaks._ There was a lump forming in his throat as the notes swelled inside the car. His hands were still twisting in his lap and he stared straight ahead at the brick wall of the school, letting the songs tick over into each other, the lyrics passing through him, each of them plucking at a different string of his heart. Why was he still listening? When had he become so _human_?

He jolted when the door to the driver’s side door creaked open.

“What are you doing in here?” Dean asked, confrontational but not angry.

Castiel turned to him, not really sure what to say. He didn’t have a purpose for being out here really, he didn’t have a practical reason for sitting in the impala listening to _Stairway to Heaven_ when he should be helping to figure out a strategy, to come up with a plan of what they were going to do next. Dean’s face was a heavy scowl and Cas just didn’t have the energy for another fight right now.

_Yes, there are two paths you can go by,_   
_But in the long run_   
_There’s still time to change the road you’re on…_

Something shifted in Dean’s expression as his eyes flicked to the tape deck, a little of the hard edge flaked away and he slid into the driver’s seat, shutting the door behind him.

“I-” Castiel croaked, and he realised his face was wet, he’d been _crying_ and Dean had seen him. Hurriedly, he wiped at his face with his sleeve, then laughed, the sound hollow and horrible. “I’m not okay,” he confessed.

Dean looked at him for a long moment and Castiel saw pain in those green eyes, as much pain as he himself felt, whether it was for Jack or for Mary or a combination of the two it suddenly didn’t matter; they were both suffering, and Castiel couldn’t stand to be isolated from Dean’s pain any more than he could shoulder his own. He knew that he _needed_ something right now; he needed a connection with the man he loved, he needed proof that he hadn’t lost him too.

He opened his mouth, then closed it again, defeat and grief crashing over him once more and he dropped his head in shame. He didn’t know what he was trying to ask for or how on earth Dean would be able to give it. Perhaps he wasn’t that human after all.

He heard the gentle clearing of a throat and looked up, Dean had raised his arm across the top of the seats and was inviting him in with a tilt of his head.

Castiel went willingly, immediately; he practically flung himself into Dean’s chest, wrapping his arms tight around the hunter’s waist, drawing his legs up and over the gear stick so he could press himself closer. He breathed in Dean’s smell, sweat just beginning to stale, gunpowder, the leather of the impala, Castiel inhaled it and was comforted. He felt those arms close tenderly around him, one staying steady while the other stroked up and down his spine.

“Shh,” he said softly, “I know.”

“I- I _missed_ you.” Cas sobbed, uncaring about the tears that were falling now, uncaring that he wasn’t making sense, Dean was here, and he was holding him, “I’m so _angry_, and I thought you h- hated me.”

“Never,” Dean assured him as soft guitar started playing through the speakers, “I’m just angry too.”

Castiel nodded into Dean’s jacket and it suddenly made perfect sense.

“_It is the springtime of my loving.”_ Dean sung quietly, his voice scratchy and ever so slightly out of time, 

_“_ _The second season I am to know. _

_You are the sunlight in my growing, _

_S_ _o little warmth I’ve felt before.”_

He began rocking gently, moving Castiel with him like he was a young child to be soothed. Castiel tightened his hold, fisting his hands in Dean’s shirt, overwhelmed, he _felt_ like a child; he didn’t think he’d ever been so vulnerable as he was in this moment, in Dean’s arms, missing his son, knowing he’d failed him, knowing he’d broken his promise to Kelly, his promise to himself, and yet, allowing that pain the space to breathe, to float around them instead of trapping it inside, it felt something like healing.

“_Speak to me only with your eyes, it is to you I give this tune.”_

So he cried into Dean’s chest, feeling the rumble of his voice, the pressure of hands moving up and down his back, and he let himself believe that it was helping.

“_I cursed the gloom that set upon us.” _Then there were fingers lightly touching under his chin and his eyes came up to meet startlingly earnest green, close and soft and afraid. “_B__ut I know that I love you so.”_

Castiel swallowed, unable or unwilling to look away from those eyes, the eyes that he had been so intrigued by in Hell, the eyes that had laughed with him, grieved with him, frosted him out or laid themselves bare, the eyes that showed the soul of the man Castiel had fallen in love with a long time ago.

He raised a hand to touch Dean’s cheek lightly, _“This is the wonder of devotion,_” he intoned, beating Dean to the words before leaning in to press their lips together.

Castiel knew that when the tape ended, so would this; he knew that the anger would return and the fighting and the full impact of _missing_ and the rest of the world that was ending, but that was all outside of this moment, far away and not _now_.

This moment was a gift, like the tape, something to keep and carry around with him as proof that Dean cared.

The rain couldn’t touch them in here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this one gave me more than a little trouble, I hope I managed to wrangle it into something suitably emotional and not OOC.
> 
> Most of the lyrics are from The Rain Song (my personal favourite Zepp track), the first few mentioned are from Stairway to Heaven. 
> 
> Come yell on me [on Tumblr](https://tibbinswrites.tumblr.com/).
> 
> Love Tibbins xx


	16. Halo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 16 - Halo - Dean gets curious.

“Hey Cas?” Dean said in that specific, drawn out tone of voice that said he was planning on being very annoying very soon.

“Yes Dean?” Cas asked, looking up from his book, drawing from the sinfinite patience he had stored up from the centuries of _not_ having to deal with the Righteous Man and the love of his life being a little shit.

“Do you have a halo?”

Castiel wasn’t expecting that. He felt his eyebrows slide up his face and he studied Dean’s expression carefully, he didn’t _look _like he was mocking him—though there was a glint in his eyes that said that could change fast—he looked like he was genuinely curious.

“A halo?”

“Yeah, you know, I just realised I’ve got no idea. Wings you got, harp is a no-no, but I never asked about the halo situation.”

Sam looked up from his own book from across the table too, never one to miss out on a learning opportunity.

“Yes,” Castiel said, “I have one.”

“You do?” Sam said, ever the excitable student, “how come it doesn’t show up when you manifest your wings?”

“I’ve never manifested my wings to you,” Castiel explained, “what you’ve seen are only shadows. A halo is pure light, it doesn’t cast one.”

“Cool.”

Cas smiled at that. Strange as it was, it was nice that he could still impress the brothers with simple facts about his kind. He _felt_ impressive, as though his wings weren’t ruins, as though his grace wasn’t warped.

“Does it do anything?” Dean asked.

Cas put a finger in his book and closed it, giving his full attention to the brothers.

“Yes. It’s what enables me to hear angel radio, and it used to help with the manipulation of time… when I could do that. I could just, tune it to the right year by frequency and my grace did the rest.

“That’s awesome!” Sam said again, his eyes bright with new knowledge.

“So…” Dean said slowly, his mouth twitching in a way that Cas _definitely_ didn’t like. “You’ve got a satellite dish on your head.”

Cas pinched his mouth together and said nothing. Sam sent a glare towards his brother. Dean looked between them, his smile bright and silly as it only got when he was telling bad jokes. “Or is it more like an antenna? Cas, do you have an antenna? Are you part bug?” He choked on his own laughter.

“Dean,” Sam groaned.

“Remind me why I fell for you again,” Cas said, looking between the two brothers with irritated amusement, which was in itself irritating because he shouldn’t find this charming, he _shouldn’t_.

“You couldn’t help it,” Dean said around spurts of mirth. “Just like they say… like a moth to a flame.”

And then he was gone, laughing hard at his ridiculous joke, slapping himself of the thigh and guffawing loud and stupid and glorious.

Castiel wouldn’t smile, he wouldn’t give Dean the satisfaction, especially seeing as he’d just called him a bug.

Sam snickered too, though when Cas turned his glare on him, he saw that Sam was more amused by Dean himself than anything he’d said.

Castiel kept his face neutral and waited until Dean had calmed down enough to hear him clearly before he spoke.

“I do have a question of my own, if you would indulge me.”

Dean raised an eyebrow, still chuckling, clearly thinking that Cas was going to try and hit back in the same vein, and knowing that he wouldn’t quite be able to get it to land, he wasn’t very good at puns. He waved waved for Cas to continue, probably hoping for more material to add to his ‘bug’ arsenal.

“Did you plan on us having sex ever again?”

Sam let out a loud and extended cackle that bounced around the room at the expression of Dean’s face.

Dean had never shut up so fast, nor had he ever turned quite that beautiful a shade of red before, his eyes were wide and suddenly very apologetic and pleading.

Castiel smirked at him and went back to his book. Say what you will about his sense of humour, he really did have _excellent_ comedic timing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So what do you think?
> 
> I hope this makes up for the past... however many days of angst, or at least gives you a little silly break from it.
> 
> Not my most nuanced story but I like it anyway :P
> 
> Come tell your worst jokes to me on [Tumblr](https://tibbinswrites.tumblr.com/).
> 
> Love Tibbins xx


	17. Limbo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 17 - Limbo - Dean/Benny and Destiel - There's something about Purgatory.

The day they found Cas hunched over a river, Dean was almost… disappointed. Yes, he was glad Cas was _here_ and that he was okay, he was glad that Benny hadn’t been lying to him, he was relieved that their journey through Purgatory could now have an end.

But he was disappointed that the days of fighting bloody with Benny at his back were gone; sure, they’d still have to tear their way out, but it would be different with Cas around. Cas _expected _things of him, expected him to be better, and dammit but Cas made him want to be that guy. Benny never wanted him to be anything other than what he was, as long as he watched Benny’s six and didn’t decapitate him in his sleep. Around Benny, he didn’t have to worry about his carefully crafted hero image, or the fact that he probably took more pleasure than he should in the kill or be killed heaviness to this place.

But it did sting that Cas didn’t seem pleased to see him.

“Nice peach fuzz,” he said, grinning, tapping Cas on his bearded cheek. He tried to ignore the way Cas’ dumbfounded expression sliced deep, the wary posture, the way his eyes flicked to Benny, the way he kept twisting to look around.

Dean Winchester had become known all over Purgatory, the human who was slowly making the dimension his bitch in his quest to find the angel, how could Cas be _surprised_ that he was here?

Of course, learning that Cas had voluntarily skipped out on him… _that_ was a blow. He almost resented Benny for bringing it up; he hadn’t been going to ask, he hadn’t wanted to know, on some level he already _had_ known and the confirmation just dug deeper.

The Dean back on Earth would have stormed off, clinging to his wounded pride, telling Cas that he could damn well find his own way out, but _this_ Dean, the Dean that didn’t have to hold so tightly to the macho bullshit he’d wrapped around himself since he was six years old, this Dean could admit that he felt betrayed, that it hurt that his prayers—the most he’d prayed in his entire faithless life—had gone ignored, and he could also admit that he even despite all that, he didn’t want to leave Purgatory without his best friend.

Cas’ excuse for leaving was a shitty one in his opinion though, what was in Purgatory that they hadn’t already faced, that they wouldn’t face better together? The thought of leviathan paled in comparison to those first few… weeks? Months? Of nights spent huddled with his back to a tree, catching twenty minutes of sleep at a time only to start awake with each far-off screech or too-close rustle of branches, before he’d met Benny and they developed enough of a trust to switch out turns keeping watch and even later, trusting Benny’s enhanced senses and Dean’s hunter instincts enough to both take a break at the same time for some… recreational activity. Something that back-on-Earth-Dean _definitely _wouldn’t have the stones to admit that he wanted.

It was kind of ironic that in being trapped in this place of monsters, Dean felt more free than he ever had. Here he didn’t have to flash a badge with a fake name to get into a building with some people that may or may not know a name or an address or a story that may or may not be relevant to finding a monster, he didn’t have to pretend that finding that monster was about anything other than the kill, he didn’t have to pretend that he needed more of a reason than because it was _there. _Sam had softened him to that over the past few years, and he’d proven that not all monsters were evil, but here? Here, everything was out for blood, either evil from the start or slowly deranged by the constant fight of this place it didn’t matter, he didn’t have to think too deeply about what was the right thing, he just had to survive, he just had to _live_.

He didn’t have to worry about what his brother knew, or suspected, about who he liked to do a bit of living with. Sam wasn’t here. Benny was here, and he was more than willing, and nothing around them would try to kill them any _harder_ for it, so it just… didn’t matter.

It wasn’t love, what he and Benny had, it was… it was trust and respect and a genuine friendship and fondness for each other, it was accepting the other’s flaws and knowing when they needed a distraction or a release. It was love _of a kind_, he supposed, but not _that_ kind, or at least, it was only a fraction of that kind, the kind that Dean held close and warm inside him, the kind that glowed a little brighter whenever Castiel came up in conversation and despite his attempts to smother it, he could tell Benny had noticed.

Which may have been why Benny was so hostile to Cas from the get-go, so confrontational, so protective, an attitude that raised Cas’ hackles until Dean felt like the heroine from a really crappy YA novel.

The moment Cas figured it out would be forever branded into Dean’s brain. It was only a few days since Cas had joined their party and the battles had gotten tougher; as Cas had predicted, monsters were locking onto his location and they were starting to come in numbers. It was after one such fight that Benny decapitated something, ended up covered in the thing’s dust and headed to the river to wash off, as he passed Dean he’d given him a quick once-over for injuries and then brushed his fingers along Dean’s wrist before moving on without a backwards glance. It was an easy touch, a practised one, the kind done for reassurance. Dean had followed Benny with his eyes until he would have had to physically turn to keep him in sight, the river was in earshot, Benny would shout if he needed help. Bathing wouldn’t make him feel less grimy, a side-effect of Purgatory, Dean supposed, the water didn’t really clean anything, and it only barely took the edge off of thirst, but it was the rituals that kept them sane.

“Oh,” Cas had said, breaking the ominous not-silence that was all Purgatory was capable of. It was a smaller voice than Dean was used to coming out of the angel and he turned to him in surprise, at the time he hadn’t registered that moment with Benny as a moment, it was just the routine they’d fallen into over their months of searching and Dean had just forgotten to be self-conscious about it.

“What?”

Cas didn’t meet his eyes, instead looking around as though searching for more monsters, but it was obvious he was just avoiding looking at Dean.

“Nothing, I just… you and the vampire are intimate. I was surprised.”

_That _brought the shame back but for once, he refused to bow to it.

“His name’s Benny,” Dean bit out, “and we’ve been fighting together in this hell-adjacent hole for what, more than half a year now? He’s a hell of a good partner to have and I owe him my life a thousand times over.”

Those steel-blue eyes snapped to his at once, “Are you saying that you felt_obligated_ to_…_”

“Hell no,” Dean said quickly before Cas went all smitey, even though the admission sent blood rushing to his face, “I was never obligated, I _wanted_…” he trailed off, unable to finish the sentence even here. “Benny’s a good guy,” he said instead, “vampire or not. I’ve been with a hell of a lot worse.”

“I know,” Cas said softly. “He has protected you where I have failed. I have failed you too often it seems.”

“He was here,” Dean said, hurt bleeding into his voice now, “he’s been here. And sure, I’m his ticket out so he kinda needs me alive but I don’t think that’s the only reason he’s stayed.”

“No,” Cas said, his gaze steady and filled with something painful that Dean couldn’t define. “You draw people, you inspire them. You make legions from individuals and they would all march at your word. At least… I know I would.”

Dean scoffed, half-disbelieving, half-unsure, that warm ball in his chest was throbbing in time with his heartbeat. Cas’s voice was soft and scratchy and his eyes were a gravitational pull all on their own. He stepped forward, bringing a hand up to hover over Dean’s cheek, not quite touching, but _almost_.

“And if you were to permit me to touch you,” Cas continued, “I would consider it an honour beyond all else.”

Dean’s chest squeezed painfully and his eyes slid to the trees before being dragged right back to Cas.

“Would it stay here? Only here?”

Cas’ expression tightened and something akin to hurt flashed across them before he schooled it back to neutral.

“If you wish it.”

Dean swallowed. “And if I don’t wish it?”

Castiel’s hand trembled and Dean finally, _finally_ leaned into it. It was warm and safe against his cheek, like it belonged there.

“I will cherish all you allow me,” Cas answered. “And I will cherish you, always.”

“It can’t be more than this,” Dean decided suddenly, true fear shooting through him at the thought. “Not here. Not with you.”

“I understand.”

“And me and Benny… I won’t stop.”

“I would not ask it. You care for him.”

Dean hesitated for barely a moment before nodding, the movement smooth against Cas’ skin.

“I do.”

“Could you still care for me? Despite everything?” Cas’ voice was unsure now, trembling almost.

“You _left _me, Cas.”

“I did.”

“You ignored my prayers.”

“Yes.”

“I begged you to come back.”

“I heard you.”

Cas moved his thumb to lightly stroke over Dean’s cheekbone before making to pull away.

Dean grabbed it and held it there.

“You idiot,” he said. “You think that would make any difference at all?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Phew, so I'm running late and I really need to go to bed but I'm on a roll and had to get it done on time.
> 
> What did you think? I've always been intrigued by the Benny/Dean relationship and figured now would be as good a time as any to try it out. I hope I did okay.
> 
> Come yell at me about it [on Tumblr](https://tibbinswrites.tumblr.com/).
> 
> Love Tibbins xx


	18. Food

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 18 - Food - The members of Team Free Will cook for different reasons.

The cupboards of the bunker’s kitchen were always full, the fridge… not so much. Oh, the _freezer_ was stacked to bursting and the pantry was almost overflowing. Every grocery run Dean would return with at least three more cans of soup or giant bags of rice or pasta, along with the fresh stuff that was gone again within days, or left to gather mold as the inhabitants took on a case with little to no forward planning.

Despite their stores of non-perishables, it was a rare week that Dean would have to dip in more than two or three times. The kitchen had been decently stocked with equipment when they’d first moved in and with the modern additions that had been added since, one could almost call it a chef’s dream.

Dean did most of the cooking, of course. He enjoyed it. He hadn’t used to, back when ‘cooking’ meant sticking a can of spaghetti hoops on a hot plate or pouring milk onto cereal, but when he learned to trust himself to work an oven without burning the place down he began to experiment. Sammy needed his vitamins after all, and John had actually been pretty good at making sure they were stocked up when they were younger, so instead of ignoring the vegetables and raw meat in favour of the quick and easy ready-meals, Dean began to try some things out. He stole a couple of recipe books and improvised with some of the more niche ingredients. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t. It had been frustrating at times, if the substitute ingredients were vile or the chicken was burnt to cinders because Dean had been distracted or mis-timed how long the potatoes would take then there was no back-up plan; the food they had had to last as long as possible, so they would either have to force it down anyway or go hungry, but it was a hell of a lot more fun than PB&J for the fourth night in a row.

It was only after they’d moved into the bunker however that Dean began baking. Before it had always been a shop-bought cake for birthdays; less so about the ingredients after he’d been issued his own fake card and more about the fact that there was no practical reason to drag crap like mixing bowls and rolling pins all over the country when they needed the room for ammo.   
But in his own space, where he could buy whatever equipment he wanted and keep it long enough to master it, Dean thrived. Okay, sometimes he was too tired or drained to do more than throw whatever he could find into a pan and call it stew but on a good day he’d make his own pasta and pastry, he’d bake cookies just for the hell of it, he’d even started making his own _bread_, just because he could. He had several recipe books but his experiments in his youth made him freer with ingredients and he established his own flair in every meal. If Dean made Sam something, especially if he _baked_ Sam something, Sam knew better than to turn up his nose. He knew Dean well enough to know that he wasn’t offering Sam food, he was offering him love on a plate. Dean cared for people by literally caring for them, by cooking for them and wrapping them up in blankets and stitching up wounds. He didn’t know how to _say_ those things, but at this point, he didn’t really need to.

Xxx

Sam’s attitude to cooking was less enthusiastic. He had a recipe for tomato rice soup for whenever Dean got sick (because Dean was the worst patient _ever_ and would only be certain to eat that one thing if he had so much as a sniffle) but he didn’t really enjoy the process. If left to his own devices, he would rather snack throughout the day on salads and fruit and make use of the state of the art juicer than have three squares. He certainly didn’t have the patience that Dean did for trial and error. He was a perfectionist by nature and didn't like making mistakes. He disliked the potential waste of it. Seeing Dean throw things out as failed experiments hurt him, maybe because of that one time when they were kids and Sam had woken up in the middle of the night to find Dean eating stale bread rolls from the trash, having skipped his own share of dinner by pretending he wasn't hungry for the second night in a row.

Dean had tried to teach him how to cook, years ago, before he left for Stanford, but whatever _he_ made was never as good as whatever _Dean _made so he supposed he just stopped trying, especially if Dean insisted on taking over the kitchen anyway because he ‘didn’t trust’ Sam’s choice of food. Just because Sam didn’t want to drown himself in bacon grease. Really, he'd never felt all that comfortable in the kitchen. Food served the purpose of keeping him healthy and strong, and he definitely enjoyed a good meal, but _making_ a good meal wasn't really something that he was willing to invest his time and energy in. To him there was always something more important that he could be doing than flitting around the kitchen like an anxious bee. He was_ capable_ of cooking; he could follow a recipe as well as anyone and he tried to use healthier substitutions where possible, but he hadn’t quite picked up the knack of seasoning, so most of his dishes came out either pretty bland or far too overseasoned to be palatable. Dean would still eat them though, taking extra portions and telling him how good it was, even though he was obviously lying through his bulging cheeks, just to make him smile. It always worked.

Xxx

Despite not needing to consume food, Cas’ cooking was actually pretty good. Once Dean had shown him how all the appliances worked (since in his first disastrous attempt to surprise the Winchesters with a meal he’d melted a pan, exploded the microwave and set all the danger alarms blaring), and after several months of hawk-like supervision, he was deemed safe enough to have free reign if he chose to. He had avoided their careful questions about _why_ he sometimes chose to, condidering he didn't eat more than a few bites of anything, but he saw it in their eyes whenever he presented them with something he’d made.

Castiel considered recipes to be as scripture. If it was written down then that was the ‘correct’ way to make the dish and he grew endlessly frustrated when some things just didn’t come out the way the recipe dictated it should. He wouldn’t even be able to consider a dish until he had every single one of the ingredients listed in the recipe and he measured them out to perfection, meaning that he spent more on ingredients than either of the other two, and there were jars of random spices and bottles of specific weird oils and flavourings that Cas had only needed a few drops or a pinch of (a literal pinch in Cas’ case) and he only cooked the same thing more than once if he was specifically asked to.

This meant that Cas’ cooking was wildly unpredictable. He didn’t really grasp that there were differences between ovens and hobs, and the temperature of one kind might not work so well for another, or that different brands of ingredients could have an effect too. He also made the most varied dishes. While Dean’s simple and hearty home-cooked style was perfected, and Sam’s dishes often had European influences, Castiel’s cooking transcended time and space; he would attempt traditional recipes from the Qing dynasty, and then an 18th century French dessert. The results weren’t always unpleasant, but were usually very weird. Dean had resorted to making back-up dinners whenever Cas cooked, just in case, though he listened with genuine interest as Cas talked them through the recipe and the modern adaptations made to it over time and who used to eat it and what that said about their social standing.

Cas didn’t understand why the Winchester brothers felt limited to cook within the boundaries of their usual supermarket. After all, he would reason, they ordered Chinese food, did they not? And Italian, and Indian and Thai? Why shouldn’t they make their own? It would be healthier, he would argue to Sam, as they would only be cooking for two, and had no need for the additives or extra ingredients that were more suited to cooking in bulk, and it would be more interesting and appropriate, he’d tell Dean, to learn how other cultures _actually_ made their food, rather than the Americanised, inaccurate copy that was just a phone call away.

They were never fully convinced, but they also didn’t protest to (most) of his dishes so he took pride in that. He enjoyed getting elbow-deep into humanity, the process of rolling meatballs or kneading dough or calculating the times he would need to make sure everything went onto the plate hot. He liked how connected it made him feel to this little species that had started out as fish and grown to be so _creative _with something as simple as a few berries and a hunk of meat. He loved immersing himself in the history of each dish, bringing to the fore facts that he had long forgotten, never deemed important enough to dwell on as a warrior of God. Sometimes, what he liked best of all was proving his old self wrong.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Over halfway folks!
> 
> You can find me on Tumblr [here](https://tibbinswrites.tumblr.com/)
> 
> Love Tibbins xx


	19. Hotels/Motels

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 19 - Hotels/Motels - Dean contemplates his temporary homes.

Dean closed the door of the motel room behind him and dropped his bags. He’d gotten a twin room out of habit, although Sam and Cas was all the way over in Arkansas on another case. Dean’s case looked like a fairly straightforward one, if a bit witchy for his taste, so Rowena was going to meet with him for interviews the next day. She had point-blank refused to meet at his motel room however, so he had to go to her. It was going to be uncomfortable for everyone involved as her place was a five-star hotel in the wealthy part of town and although Dean would be wearing a suit, it was obvious to anyone who knew what they were looking at that it was a cheap one.

He flopped onto the bed nearest the door and then grunted with pain as an errant spring dug up into his ribs. This mattress was barely worthy of the name and he missed his memory foam. The bunker had spoiled him, having a room for the night had been a luxury growing up; for every night John had left them in a motel there were two spent in the backseat of the impala, which got gradually more and more cramped, especially when Sam hit his growth spurt in his teens.

They all blurred into each other, motel rooms. They were like Biggerson’s, close all the blinds and you could be anywhere. The décor was generic (unless you went to a specifically themed place but that was a whole other ball game), off-white walls, threadbare carpet, linoleum to mark where the kitchenette began, a single framed picture over each bed of a forest or a ship at sea. The chairs were straight-backed and wooden, the sofa had caved in on either side from the weight of so many asses, the TV reception was shoddy, as was the wi-fi, and it was ten to one that the heater was broken. Everything had stains of some kind, the kinds of stains that you could easily ignore if you were only stopping the night, but that once you noticed, you could never un-notice.

Dean had made a game out of that; he and Sam would search the whole room to find the stain with the weirdest shape (the record was Sam’s find in Winnipeg, which had been a creepily specific brown splat that looked exactly like a huge spider, the two weeks they’d stayed in that motel, Dean had had to step on the thing every morning before Sam would come anywhere near the kitchen).

Dean had never really decided if he liked motels or not. He liked the anonymity. No questions asked if you rocked up covered in grave dirt at four in the morning, and if you trashed the place because a werewolf crashed through the window or you had to paint an angel-banishing sigil on the wall that you couldn’t _quite_ erase later… well the room probably needed a do-over anyway. Cash in hand, an illegible scribble on a piece of paper and a ‘Do not disturb’ sign on the door and you had your very own disposable base of operations. The practicality was a big plus. He also liked the noise of it: neighbours rowing, cars pulling in off the interstate, phone alarms blaring, doors opening and closing, pipes gurgling, kids throwing tantrums and beds creaking, even Sam’s breathing from the next bed; they weren’t the most soothing sounds, true, but he’d grown up hearing them. Noise to him was safer than quiet, noise was distracting and it meant other people. Dean liked to be reminded that there were other people around sometimes, people who didn’t need saving right that minute, people who had no idea that there were monsters in town. Other people that just passing through, on road trips with their families or having one night stands, or travelling for work; people just living. Also, magic fingers, he liked the magic fingers.

But there were many things he _didn’t _like about motels too; he didn’t like how each one was different enough to never really feel familiar; he didn’t like that sometimes he’d wake up and couldn’t remember if he was in Connecticut or Boston. He didn’t like the tiny bottles of liquor in the mini-fridge and after having had his own fully-equipped kitchen for the past several years, he didn’t like not being able to make anything more complicated than Weetabix. He didn’t like that it never felt clean. Even if he scrubbed down the shower himself before he used it, the fluctuating pressure or hot water or sometimes just the _feel_ of it was wrong on his skin and he emerged feeling dirtier than he had going in.

Maybe he was getting too old for motels. The bunker was home to him now, and even the quiet and the lack of windows and the military-hard style of the place had grown comfortable. He was settled there, he had his own _room_. Two rooms really since he’d converted the Dean-cave.

He rolled off the spring and into a dip that almost landed him on the floor. Grumbling, he struggled to sit to unlaced his boots and pull them off before switching over to the other bed, testing it out with a couple of bounces. It wasn’t quite as bad as the other one so it would do. He was too tired to bother with brushing his teeth or undressing. It had been a long drive from the bunker, just him and Baby and his tapes. He’d enjoyed most of it; he could sing as loud as he wanted, stop for chilli fries just ’cause, inch the speedometer over 90 on an empty highway without Sam throwing a bitch fit.

He laid down and blinked at the ceiling, then he squinted. A stain, well… two stains that had merged into an image of wings, spread wide, feathers distinct. Dean smiled. Then pulled out his phone and snapped a picture to send to Sam, that _had _to be a contender.

He stared at the wings looking down on him a little longer before rolling over, suddenly feeling the weight of his aloneness. It wasn’t that impressive. After all, he got that at home too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kinda struggled with this one, not gonna lie. I put off even starting it for most of the day xD
> 
> Hope you like it anyway.
> 
> Come find me on Tumblr [here](https://tibbinswrites.tumblr.com/).
> 
> Tomorrow is going to be interesting. I have 0 ideas and actual real-life plans so that'll be a fun mix :P
> 
> Love Tibbins xx


	20. Imagination

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 20 - Imagination - Dean wonders about the point of it all and Cas has some bad news. Mild spoilers for that scene of 15x02.

Dean was beyond angry, he was beyond afraid, he was almost beyond caring, but no, of course he was still capable of _that_, where would be the fun otherwise?

He had never been one for religion, how could he be? Demons had been real to him since he was six years old but there were no old hunter's stories about their opposite, nothing to suggest that there was any kind of creature out there that wasn't completely evil. He knew that Sam used to pray, but the idea that there was something listening had always been absurd to him.

Once he knew unequivocally that angels existed it was no longer a question of belief; sure, the idea of God was still a fuzzy one, but he could safely assume that it was pretty likely, especially when Lucifer joined the picture and started whining about his daddy issues, like he was the only one with a deadbeat father.

But despite all of that, Dean had always had faith, not in Chuck, not in fate, not that things were gonna work out in the end, because boy had he been proven wrong on that account more than once, but he'd always believed in his own agency. He'd been certain that his choices made a real difference to the world and good or bad, they were his responsibility.

Turns out, nothing is real and his choices hadn't made a damn bit of difference. It wasn't right. He had struggled so hard to come to terms with certain aspects of who he was, he'd made an active effort to change his thinking, to be _better_ and now he was supposed to just accept that all that work had been for nothing? That he would've gotten here anyway because Chuck's fucking _story_ dictated it? Even the things he was proud of weren't his achievements at all but plot points, pre-determined and certain. How long was the length of rope named Free Will? Was it even long enough to make a noose with? Had he ever in his life made a single decision on his own? Had he ever picked out his own underwear? Was his favourite band Led Zeppelin because he actually liked them or because Chuck had chosen them for him? Had he really fallen in love with Cas?

It was that last that was giving him the most trouble, the most rage. The people in his life that he loved, Sam, Cas, his mother, Jack, Jody and the girls, Rowena, Garth, Bobby, Charlie, Kevin, Lisa and Ben, were any of those connections real? Had they ever been real or were they just constructed that way to push him in a certain direction or to shift his priorities? And if they _were_ real, how could he know? How could he ever trust in that again? Chuck was the puppet-master and now that Dean had noticed the strings, he had to assume that they'd been there the whole time, making him dance.

It was just too much. What the hell was he supposed to do now? Would it matter? Was he being manipulated even now?

Cas had said that they were real. He had said it with such fierce certainty that it set Dean's brain spinning. How was he so _sure_? And what had he meant by 'real' anyway? Had he meant it in the basic way in that they existed, or had he meant something deeper? The essence of them, who they were, their personalities, their loves and their hates and their choices and their feelings, had he meant that those were made not from Chuck's imagination but by their own lives, their own experiences, themselves?

He wished he could think so.

"Dean?"

Cas had found him again. Not that he was hiding, not really, in fact, he'd been kind of hoping. He knew that if anyone could convince him that his whole life was more than God's fever dream it was Cas, the guy who had been made with the idea that his existence was to further God's plan. If _Cas_ could believe that they had autonomy in their lives then how could Dean not?

Dean turned to him. Cas looked determined and grave.

"What?"

"I just thought I should tell you… I'm leaving."

"_What?" _Dean said again, incredulous, this was the last thing he'd expected, honestly probably the worst turn of events he could imagine. "Why?"

"Belphegor," Cas said with a half-guilty shrug, "mostly. I can't… Dean, he's using Jack's body."

"Cas-"

"I understand that Belphegor is useful, but that doesn't mean I can be around him. Every time I see him and I see that demon face underneath, it's like losing him all over again and I can't."

"We've talked about this, Cas. We need him."

"No, we haven't talked about this. In fact we've barely talked at _all_ which is another reason I need to leave. I'm adding nothing right now. I can't keep these people safe, I can't convince you that our choices matter, I can't stop you being angry or come up with a solution about what to do next, I'm not even sure I can _heal_ anymore so what is the point in staying?"

"Because you want to."

Cas shook his head, a sad smile on his lips.

"I don't," he said simply. "For the first time, I don't want to stay, Dean. I don't want to see my son's corpse every day, I don't want to be reminded of how badly I have failed you and Sam, I don't want to wait around and do nothing, feeling useless, _being_ useless. I don't want to be your punching bag any more."

"You're not-"

"Are you going to finish that sentence," Cas interrupted, "really?"

Dean fell silent and swallowed.

Cas sighed. "If you need me, I'll be there," he promised. "But if there is a solution to the apocalypse, it won't be found in this half-mile radius of a town, and you can't leave these people. I'll keep you updated."

Later, Dean imagined what would have happened if he'd stopped him, if he'd grabbed him by the arm and told him not to leave, if he'd apologised for being an asshole, if he'd told Cas he loved him, if he'd kissed him and begged him to stay because he _needed_ him here, he needed Cas around just because, he needed to know that he was safe and here and where Dean could reach him. He imagined it playing out in vivid detail, the kiss, Cas kissing back, Cas looking at him in awe as Dean murmured words that he would be embarrassed to repeat, kind words, soft words, words that he _felt_ but could never seem to say.

He wondered if it would have been enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So today's plans didn't work out as I'm not feeling well but that means more time for writing! Yay? Yay! 
> 
> I think I got a little off-topic for today's prompt but I had nothing and I really wanted to write a 15x02 thing so this is the result.
> 
> What did you guys think of the episode? I'm curious.
> 
> If you like, you can tell me [on Tumblr](https://tibbinswrites.tumblr.com/) ^_^
> 
> Love Tibbins xx


	21. Lighting

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 21 - Lighting - Just a huge amount of tooth-rotting Destiel sweetness :D

It was dim in Dean’s room. Three of the four light sources were off; a small desk lamp was the only illumination, bathing its surroundings in a soft, golden glow. Strange how gentle lighting made the room itself look gentle, even the blocky shapes of the weapons adorning the walls didn’t look quite so harsh at the moment, all the sharp edges grew feathered, blending into the wall and their own shadows like a smudged oil painting.

All the colours in the room: album covers, the spines of dusty books, the clothes in the half-open closet, had been sanded away, leaving everything yellowed and fuzzy and dream-like. Or maybe it was the music, the notes from the record player in the corner were slow and kind, tentatively pulling themselves from the vinyl and into the air to kiss the one that had come before, before it too was replaced by the next.

Then again it could be the occupants, the only things other than the record player and the dust motes that moved, their shadows shifting along the walls, changing the segments of darkness at a whim.

They danced, if indeed one could call it that. Their hands clasped on one side, on the other they rested at the base of the other’s spine and they swayed, slowly turning together, their hips in time with the music notes. In this light, Castiel’s hair was pitch-black while Dean’s was golden, Dean’s eyes sparkled while Castiel’s were closed, his head resting in the crook where Dean’s shoulder met his neck. They both breathed deeply, not the heavy breaths of strenuous activity or the flustered kind one took to calm themself but the kind of breathing one did when one was already calm, when everything felt safe and warm and close. The kind with no expectations or regrets, the kind of pure contentment that came only with moments like this.

The hand on the back of Castiel’s fawn-coloured coat pressed in slightly and Dean smiled as Castiel’s breath tickled his neck, it was what Castiel would call his favourite smile if he could see it; the upturn of Dean's mouth was small and delicate, the kind of smile that crinkled the edges of his eyes, lighting them fond, and had Castiel been looking, he would not have been able to look away.

They shifted their weight between each leg every few seconds, keeping up the pretence that they were dancing and not just holding each other, because that would be strange, just wanting to hold and be held when they weren’t sleep-warm and half-conscious; dancing was an activity, it was something that _required_ the holding and the being held. So they called it dancing, and that way they both saved face with themselves.

Castiel sighed deeply, pressing his lips to the side of Dean’s neck before pulling it from its nest to draw back and look at Dean, catching the edge of that smile. He smiled too, the same kind, and for a while they both just stood there smiling at each other, barely remembering to rock their hips, to make sure they were still dancing.

The lines on their faces had deepened in the low light. No, more accurate to say that the _life_ on their faces had deepened; their stories were ravines and seemed endless and right now that suited the two of them just fine, it gave them time for their almosts to become memories, for their maybes to become certain, for their potential to become _something_.

Perhaps it was the calm, or the music, or the lighting, but as one they stopped swaying, stopped pretending that this moment could be anything other than closeness; it wasn’t an activity, it was a _feeling_ and they both decided that they had been dancing around each other for long enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is one of my favourites so far, short as it is. ^_^
> 
> Do you agree? Do you have a favourite chapter so far? Let me know! I'm interested in these things.
> 
> Leave a comment or come find me [on Tumblr](https://tibbinswrites.tumblr.com/).
> 
> Love Tibbins xx


	22. Love

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 22 - Love - Dean isn't really a fan.

Once, Dean got cornered by a vamp in a museum (don’t even ask) and having lost his own machete, with blood dripping into his eyes he’d had to yank an old sword from one of the exhibits and lash out blindly at the thing’s neck. He hadn’t been expecting much from such an ancient and probably blunt blade; he felt practically no resistance from his swing and heard the thing laugh so he’d assumed he’d missed, but when she leaned in to bury her teeth in his neck, her head fell off.

Love was kinda like that.

It’s not like he hadn’t seen it _coming_. Dean had been drawn to Castiel since he first showed up in that barn with the light show and the gravel in his voice and those ageless, earnest, stony blue eyes. There had been kindness in him even then and Dean had been embarrassed, angry; he’d mistaken it for pity at first.

But the kindness had been persistent and so had Cas, and Dean had felt himself starting to thaw against his better judgement. He started to crave that kindness, given not because of any familial obligation or even as some kind of benevolent gift of forgiveness for his sins in Hell, but just because Cas was kind, and liked him. Dean had never met anyone so selfless before, and not in the way that he seemed to think he was selfless, by not having a self other than to serve Heaven’s plan, but in the way that he started to consider the harm that Heaven’s plan might be doing, in the way that he had saved Dean from Alastair, had gone for the kill in that fight despite the fact Heaven needed him alive, in the way he listened to Dean’s worries and shared his own, in the way he took the time to cultivate their budding friendship, the way he invested in it even when the other angels mocked him, demoted him, cast him down.

It would have been easier for Cas if he wasn’t so kind.

Dean wasn’t that kind; he’d made demands of Cas, had forced him into action that he wasn’t ready for, damning the consequences that weren’t his to bear. The thing about love with Dean was that he didn’t know what to do with it when he wasn’t pulling it from his unwilling brother and citing family, as though that was the great band-aid for all of his mistakes. The thing about love with Dean was that he just didn’t know _how_.

He felt it, of course he felt it, how could he not? Everything about Cas was beautiful and grand and delicately sweet, every lingering touch was gentle with the knowledge that he could crush bone if he chose, his smile brought Dean a sense of pride that he got to bear witness to such delight, and he would come to Dean with his doubts, his plans, his wants and his regrets and Dean was terrified that he would buckle under the weight when Cas could so easily hold Dean’s.

It terrified him.

How could he return such purity when everything he was was sullied? How could he touch him without leaving bruises or smudges of filth behind? How could a man of no faith hold divinity between his palms? Feel it on his lips? Take it inside himself to cherish and nurture?

How could he pretend that he wasn’t desperate to try?

It came out in anger, of course, as everything that confused him always did; harsh words and deflection, forcing space because if he drew the line then it couldn’t hurt when it wasn’t crossed, if he pushed Cas away then when he left it wouldn’t be a shock to his core, if he got in the first blow, then the return one was deserved.

Dean Winchester didn’t know how to love Castiel, he just did. And he was pretty sure his head had rolled a long time ago.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So what's your verdict?
> 
> I can't say I'm very happy with this one, I might change it completely in editing. But I didn't have any concrete ideas and I ran out of time so this is just kinda angsty word vomit. Sorry!
> 
> Feel free to come complain at me on Tumblr (I deserve it) [here](https://tibbinswrites.tumblr.com/).
> 
> Love Tibbins xx ^_^


	23. No Exit

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 23 - No Exit - Warnings for Major Character Death, lots of blood and heavy angst.

Dean pulled out his phone, grimacing as the movement sent a fresh wave of warm blood gushing from the wound in his stomach. He had to use both hands to hold it, which meant no one was keeping pressure on the wound, which sucked. He had to try several times to unlock the thing, his fingers were sticky and the touch wasn't really registering. What the hell had been so wrong with buttons that phone companies decided to do away with them altogether? Maybe Bobby had had a point in his aversion to computers, or maybe Dean had just gotten old enough to be falling behind. At least he had signal in here. He tapped on the name and it began to ring. Dean winced as he reapplied pressure to his stomach with one hand, not that it would do much,

"Hello Dean," The voice was as warm and gritty as wet sand and Dean instantly relaxed, slumping back against the wall, though that wasn't the voice he'd been expecting to hear.

"Where's Sam?"

"He's meeting with that paranoid office worker, he said he had some information on the thing's location but made Sam promise to leave his phone behind."

"Oh yeah, 'cause _that's_ not concerning." He tried to push back the crushing disappointment that he wouldn't be able to hear his baby brother's voice one more time. He still had Cas.

"Sam said you'd say that," Cas said, the hint of a smile in his voice. "Don't worry, we checked him out beforehand, went through his whole life story in paperwork, he is who he says and 'he's not the droid we're looking for'."

Dean laughed, okay, it was half a laugh, half an extended, pained cough. It was a horrible, hacking sound, not one that could be passed off as anything other than concerning. "Man, I'm so glad I made you watch Star Wars."

"What's wrong?" Cas asked, voice instantly hardened, serious, "are you alright?"

"Uhh…" He considered lying, he did. He already missed the warmth of happy, calm Cas. Then he shifted and coughed again and knew that Cas would never forgive him if he lied now. "No, buddy."

"Where are you?" Cas was all business now, and he could hear the light static of air passing through the speaker as the phone moved, keys jingled in the background, the sound of a door.

"Cas-" it was too late, he wanted to say, Cas wouldn't get here in time. Dean was lying in a pool of what he judged to be about five pints of his own blood. He was woozy and feverish, steadily dripping out more, and to top it all off, he was in a solid stone room so even if Cas made it before Dean croaked, getting _in _would take more time than he had.

"_Where!_" Cas shouted.

"The… the theme park outside of town. The maze room. Thing was a freaking _minotaur_, you believe that? Not heard of them outside of Greece before."

"Was," Cas repeated the sound of a car engine rumbling through the phone. "You killed it?"

"I think you could say we killed each other at the same time," Dean said, glancing over to where the misshapen lump of the minotaur lay. "I just… haven't gotten around to dying yet."

"Don't talk like that. I'm on my way, you're gonna be fine."

"I'm bleeding out, Cas. If I go quiet don't think I'm ignorin' ya, alright?"

He could feel it, the sleepiness that came with blood loss, the way his head kept dipping. It wasn't too bad yet, he'd had practise at this after all, but he knew he wouldn't be able to fight it much longer. The minotaur had gored him, and then it had thrown him backwards just as Dean had managed to get the wire around the its neck, unknowingly killing itself when it threw Dean away, the wire sliced through spine and muscle and tendons half a second before Dean hit the wall.

"Hold on," Cas ordered, voice desperate. Dean would bet Baby that the gas pedal was on the floor. Even so, the theme park was a quarter of an hour away. "Hold on just a little longer. Please, Dean."

"I'm glad you picked up," Dean confessed. "I don't… I don't wanna be alone."

"I'm right here."

"Yeah," Dean said quietly. "You're always here when it counts."

There was a small sniff from the other end of the line, or at least that's what Dean _thought_, but blood loss and pain could do all sorts of funky things. He pressed a little harder to the wound and hissed as it shot lightning through all his pain receptors.

"What the hell made you go after this thing alone?" Cas demanded. "You couldn't have called me?"

"Save the lecture till after I'm dead, Cas." He said, trying to sound jokey, but it rang hollow.

"Don't-"

"Thing jumped me anyway. Knocked me out. I woke up in the middle of the maze. Only know that's where it is 'cause we were in here, what, two days ago?"

When the three of them had first rolled into town the first thing Dean had seen was the theme park, and seeing as they would've had to wait until the next day to get started on the case _anyway_ they decided to go. It had been a great day. Dean dragged Cas to the bumper cars and laughed his ass off as the guy drove around the track like a jittery grandmother.

But as it turned out, Cas _love__d_ roller-coasters.

In the maze they'd split up. Sam had followed a thread of interesting murals while Dean and Cas went searching for the centre; Sam text them while they were getting lost to let them know he'd already found the middle and the exit and that he was going to go get them candy apples while he waited. They found it eventually, a cool and dimly lit stone room with a bell suspended on wire in the middle to ring to prove you'd made it. Apparently there was also a huge stone slab that could be (and was currently being) used as a door, rolled into position and fixed in place by some mechanism that he couldn't see and didn't care to investigate. In fact, it was that very door that he was now bleeding out on. He had to hand it to the minotaur, this was the ideal spot for squirrelling away victims after hours, as long as those victims weren't viciously well-trained and resourceful, of course, but that was no fault of the location.

"Dean?"

Dean shook himself, he'd been dangerously close to drifting off into his own head for a second there, "Yeah, sorry."

"Keep talking to me," Cas instructed, "I'm almost there."

"Cas, you're not gonna-" Dean began.

"Shut up!"

"Keep talking, shut up, I'm getting mixed signals here, buddy." Dean said, his words ending in a wheeze, apparently he needed to stick to shorter sentences if he still wanted to breathe.

"Oh please, you _invented _mixed signals." Cas retorted, clearly just grasping on to the thread of conversation to keep Dean talking, he couldn't blame him, were the situations reversed he knew he'd do the same. He heard the crunch of gravel and figured that Cas had hit the theme park parking lot.

"And what's that s'pposed to mean?" He heard his voice beginning to slur and he fought it as best he could. He was shocky, had been since about the third pint of blood ventured out into the wide world, shock he was an old hand at but now he was approaching pint six and his vision was dipping.

"We are not having this conversation now," Cas said fiercely, and he was running. Dean wasn't sure he'd even switched off the car engine but he could hear the rhythmic pound of footsteps, the slight hitch in Cas' breathing, more at the force of his feet hitting ground rather than any bodily strain, damn angels. "You said the middle of the maze?"

"Yeah," Dean said, feeling himself start to slip, the darkness was so inviting, it _hurt_ where he was, sat on the cold stone, his own blood soaking into his socks. "S'okay, Cas."

"Don't you dare fall asleep, you hear me?!" Cas yelled into the phone, panicked now, his voice remarkably stable for someone sprinting full speed, Dean loved his voice, he loved how it could be soft and badass at the same time, he loved the way it formed itself around words and made them become emotion by association. "I'm almost there."

"Mmm."

"Dean!"

"You say my name weird." Dean said, mostly to stop Cas from yelling at him.

"I do?"

"Yeah, like it means somethin', not just a name, you know? But _me_."

"You _do_ mean something," Cas insisted. "You mean a lot, you mean_ everything_."

"Dramatic bastard."

Cas let out a sound then, half a sob, half relief, and then there was a bang on the solid block of stone behind him, vibrating it, making his skull ring like that damned bell.

"Ow," he complained.

"Dean!" Cas called, his voice tinny through the phone and muffled through the door. "Can you hear me?"

Dean allowed the phone to slip from his fingers and into the pool of blood with a sick _plop_.

"Yeah, Cas. I hear ya."

"How do I open the door?"

"Dunno, buddy. The thing had keys, maybe that."

"Can you slide them under the door?"

"Can't reach 'em."

"Try!"

So Dean half-heartedly lifted a heavy arm before letting it drop. "Ain't happening."

"Not even to save yourself?" He sounded angry, good, angry was better than upset, he deserved angry.

"Cas, I don't think I could move to save Sam right now." 

There was a pause then, a brief one, and if he wasn't mistaken a sob burbled up from the blood-soaked phone that didn't make it through the door.

"Okay," Cas said, that glorious voice remarkably gentle now. "Okay, then I'll find another way in."

Another pause, and then the whole room _trembled_, dust floated down from the ceiling and Dean grimaced at the pain even that slight movement caused. That tremble came again, and again, and a fourth time.

"Are you trying to punch your way through?" Dean asked, half-incredulous, half-impressed. He'd also probably be a little turned on if he had any blood to spare.

"Yes."

"Well stop it, you're giving me a headache."

"Dean-"

"Dammit, Cas! Just _talk_ to me."

If Cas heard the note of fear in his voice, he was kind enough not to mention it, though it wasn't the dying that frightened Dean, he'd been down _that_ road more times than he could count, no, he just… he didn't want to spend his last minutes in a stone box listening to Cas lose his freaking mind.

"I can _save _you_."_

"No, you can't." Dean said quietly.

It was definitely a sob this time, one last, tiny thump, and the sound of Cas falling to the ground, either on his knees or on his ass Dean couldn't be sure.

"It's okay, Cas. You'll be okay."

"Don't bullshit me," Cas said. "I've lost you before, I know that I won't."

"Yeah, well… You've still got Sam, and he's gonna need you too."

"Sam… what… what am I gonna tell him?"

"You'll tell him that you stayed with me. You'll tell him I told him to cut his damn hair."

Cas laughed wetly. "He won't."

Dean smiled, despite himself, "Yeah, I know."

There was a brief silence while Dean struggled to stay conscious just a little longer. He wished he could see Cas, touch him, watch his eyes turn soft and focused, looking at him like he was something beautiful and brilliant and loved.

"Never thought it would be like this," he said after a minute, because he knew Cas was about to call his name again, shaky, and not expecting a reply.

"You never factored in 'minotaur'?"

"Funny, right? I've got a long list of ways I thought I'd get taken out, but never once thought of a minotaur."

"Sounds like bad planning on your part." Cas replied, with forced calm.

"Right?"

Another few seconds passed, then, because Dean just couldn't stand it anymore, "I love you."

He heard the gasp, heard the gulp and the choke, hated himself for it; because Cas would have to live with this moment forever. Dean would be dead with the words no longer stoppering his lungs but Cas would have to carry them around with him for the rest of his life, or at least until he learned how to set them down and leave them behind. Dean didn't like to think about either option.

"Sorry," he continued, "I know, Winchesters don't do deathbed confessions."

"So, why-?"

"Because you deserve to hear it. Because I fuckin' love you and I can be such an asshole sometimes and I'm not sure you know."

"I know," Cas said thickly. "I was waiting for you to say it, to be ready."

"I've got the worst timing."

"Yes, you do."

Dean practically heard the teary smile, even as the room faded to blackness, he was still conscious, just, could still hear, but keeping his eyes open was just… too much.

"I love you too." Cas said, "bad timing and all."

"Good, or that would've been awkward."

"Any other deathbed confessions while we're here?"

"Just one, but if you tell Sam, I'm gonna haunt your ass."

"What?" Cas' voice was like a breath of clean air after a storm, air that he could barely get into his lungs now.

"I'm scared." The words came out in a puff of air, barely audible now. "How dumb is that? I don't want Heaven, Cas. I just wanna go _home_."

"I know." Cas said quietly. "You're the one person who won't be content with paradise."

"Mem'ries 'rn't the same." He mumbled, his tongue thick and unwieldy in his mouth.

"But we had some good ones, didn't we?" Cas murmured through the door. "Like the time I first made you laugh in that brothel? And when we…"

Cas' voice faded out, a soothing rhythm of pleasant memories and feelings.

It wasn't the worst way to go, all things considered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sooooo... yeah... that happened, I guess.
> 
> I made myself cry, though that was actually the writing or just how my life is right now I have no clue :P
> 
> All feedback is treasured forever, sorry I'm taking so long to reply to people, I'm really struggling for any kind of time.
> 
> You can find me on Tumblr [here](https://tibbinswrites.tumblr.com/).
> 
> Love Tibbins xx


	24. Nightmare

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 24 - Nightmare - More fluff than yesterday's you'll be pleased to know.

Cas paced through the hallways of the bunker, lost in his own thoughts; not that his thoughts were anywhere in particular. It was a calm night, had been a reasonably calm week, but it was the calmest nights that he tended to stay close to Dean's room, just in case. It was only then that Dean's head would settle enough for him to-

A pained gasp came from the doorway to his left and Cas was there in an instant. He knocked lightly, in case Dean was awake and 'busy', but he didn't expect a reply. After a few seconds he slipped inside the room.

Dean was twisting on the bed, his hands fisting the sheets; one of the legs of his sweatpants was rucked up to the knee and his t-shirt and was darkened with sweat. Now that he was close enough, Cas could smell the distress coming off him in waves as he whimpered and moaned and half-cried out broken sentences. Cas went to him.

He couldn't completely ward off nightmares any more, his grace had been sapped enough to prevent that kind of healing, but he could help a little, so he tenderly stroked the hair back from where it stuck to Dean's forehead, feeding pulses of grace through his fingers to soothe the worst of the fear. Dean was strong, he could fight the rest.

He hushed Dean softly as the man let out another jagged whining sound, continuing to rhythmically thread his fingers through his hair. Dean was very tactile, Cas had found, though he often held himself back from touching even when he wanted to. Touch calmed him when he was agitated, when he allowed it, of course.

After a few moments Dean began to settle, his twitching became less frequent and he grew quieter. Cas moved from hovering over him to sitting in the chair next to the bed, adjusting his touch from Dean's hair to his hand. Slowly, Cas managed to pry Dean's fingers from the white-knuckle grip of the sheets and when he did, his whole body seemed to let out a breath as he relaxed back into the memory foam. Cas trailed his fingertip along the lines of Dean's palm, wondering what they would mean to someone who had the gift to read them. The life line would probably give them issues, he thought with a smile.

Dean huffed in his sleep, his fingers twitching around Cas' for a moment, his features smoothing into something less angry than his usual sleep countenance. He kept hold of Dean's hand, even though he was no longer using his grace, and with his left he manoeuvred himself into a position to be able to tug the flung covers back into place around Dean's neck. It was remarkably tricky for such a simple task but he knew that letting go of Dean's hand was invitation for a relapse into bad dreams.

He felt guilty sometimes that this wasn't something he did for Sam too. He knew the younger Winchester had nightmares as well, probably ones that were just as debilitating, and he shouldn't have to suffer them alone, but it felt wrong to enter Sam's room while he was sleeping, too intimate. Maybe it was strange that going into Dean's room _didn't _feel strange, no matter how many times Dean told him that it was creepy, he could sense Dean's longing, his relief. He _liked_ the company, even unconscious he could sense it. Cas liked that he registered as a non-threatening presence to Dean's subconscious, even a comforting one.

On occasion, going back centuries, God would send an angel or two to answer so simple a prayer, "Dear Lord, please watch over … tonight."

It was rare, but once or twice Castiel had been sent to watch over a child or an ailing adult, not to heal them, that was a separate miracle, but to keep their sleep uninterrupted and safe. Angels had that effect on humans, he'd found, they were soothed in the presence of the divine.

Not so with Dean, at first, or at least he'd been unwilling to accept it, the first time he'd jolted awake to pull a gun on him had completely startled Castiel. Clearly hunter instincts ran deeper than any surface-level feeling of 'safe'.

"Cas?"

Cas dropped Dean's hand guiltily, glad that Dean's human eyes wouldn't be able to see his blush. Damn, he should have sensed Dean starting to wake, but he'd been so calmed himself by the sound of his steady breathing, by the minute movements he made that he just hadn't noticed.

"You had a nightmare," Cas explained quietly, standing, "but you're alright now. Go back to sleep."

"Wait."

Cas paused, Dean's hand was gripping at the edge of his coat.

"Why don't you stay this time?"

Cas blinked in surprise, looking down at Dean, at the way his eyes were still closed, even though he was definitely awake, the tension in his shoulders, the tremor in his voice. The nightmare must have been a bad one.

"Alright." Cas said, surprising himself when he let the coat fall to the floor and toed of his boots. He was still unsure of himself here, Dean had only asked this of him a couple of times. Still, he slid beneath the covers and allowed Dean to rearrange him as he pleased.

Dean practically lay on top of him now, his arm flung over Cas' waist, one leg in between both of Cas' own. He nuzzled into Cas' neck with a contented sigh, none of the usual hesitation or tension now that Cas had accepted his offer.

Castiel's arms encircled him automatically, holding him firmly but with all the delicacy of handling something precious. He refused to name the feeling that swelled inside of him, he already knew what it was. He was pretty sure Dean knew too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little rushed, I know. Sorry!
> 
> Hopefully it's enough cuteness to stop you hating me after yesterday! :P
> 
> As always, I'm on Tumblr [here](https://tibbinswrites.tumblr.com/) if you wanna come find me.
> 
> Love Tibbins xx


	25. Tattoos

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 25 - Tattoos - Cas wants one, and he wants it to be perfect.

“I want a tattoo,” Cas said one morning, completely out of the blue and while Dean was still dangerously in his first sips of his first coffee.

“You’ve got tattoos.” Dean bit back grumpily, though Cas knew better than to take his ire seriously before ten am.

“Yes. I want another one.”

“Okay…” Dean drew out the word like he was waiting for Cas’ point.

“Can I?”

Dean snorted and placed his mug down on the table, “I’m not your mother, Cas. You’re a grown ass practically immortal being. If you want a tattoo you don’t need my permission.”

“I know, but… would you help me? I don’t want to end up disappointed and I don’t know how to tell if a parlour is a good one or not.”

Dean squinted at him through the steam from his coffee, considering.

“Sure. Go grab my laptop, we can have a look around.”

***

Dean was almost done with his mug and a lot more cheerful when Cas returned a few minutes later, he took the laptop and flipped it open, searching for nearby tattoo parlours and going onto their various websites.

“I don’t suppose sanitation really matters to you,” Dean said, flipping through some pictures of a studio before dismissing it. “Seeing as you can’t get infected and all, but it says a lot about how much a place cares about the art it makes. If you can stumble in there at three am and demand Bob Ross’ face on your ass then you’re not in the right place.”

“Why would anyone-?”

“People.” Dean answered with a shrug. “Those are the kind of places we went to get these,” he gestured at his chest, “but these are practical, they just had to be copied from a drawing we supplied, if you want an actual design, you need to find an actual artist, not just someone with a tattoo gun who can draw hearts and fancy swirls and a passable wolf.”

Cas wrinkled his nose at the thought. He _did_ want a proper design, something beautiful, something meaningful, something _his_. But the task seemed monumental for _him_ let alone a stranger.

“Here are the ones that look decent.” Dean said a few minutes later, showing Cas a set of six tabs. “What do you want to get anyway?”

“I don’t know.” Cas said, feeling touched that Dean was walking him through this but overwhelmed as he clicked on the first tab and a slew on images popped up. “How am I supposed to choose?”

Surprisingly, instead of mocking him, Dean smiled and shuffled his chair closer so he could see the screen too.

“Look through the artist portfolios,” he directed, pointing to the option at the top of the screen. “Most will have links to their own websites with more of their work. You’re not looking for the perfect design, just the perfect style. Some are better at portraits, others at more geometric stuff, some do different things with colour. You can narrow it down by crossing out the ones you don’t like.”

Cas nodded solemnly and turned his attention back to the screen. The first artist had lots of strong black lines and straight edges. The second a lot of portraits, neither of which really appealed to him.

He seemed to search for hours. Dean was refilling his coffee when Cas found what he was looking for.

“This one.” Cas said, looking up to see Dean jump at his voice. “I want her.” He tried to keep his tone neutral but from the slight crinkle at the edge of Dean’s eyes he hadn’t been able to hide the excitement in his voice.

“Alright, let’s take a look.” Dean said, leaving his mug at the machine and coming over to look at the screen over Cas’ shoulder. “Nice,” he agreed.

Castiel felt a warm buzzing in his stomach, he was glad that Dean liked it too. The image on the screen was a rose, not what Cas was looking for really, delicately done, with a fine outline, but it was the _colours_ that were magical; midnight blue and deep, rich purples blended in the petals, with a shimmer that looked almost metallic, smudging across the lines slightly, not enough to ruin the image but just enough to be imperfect, to feel _right_.

Castiel booked a consultation for the following week.

***

Cas sat in the waiting room of the tattoo parlour, tapping his foot nervously while Dean sat next to him. Dean had insisted on coming with him and Castiel hadn’t thought to object, the last time he’d gotten a tattoo he’d been alone, and although the pain was minimal compared to some of the torments he’d endured as an angel, experiencing it as human pain was different and he had wished for company, even if Dean only would have mocked him and compared him to an infant.

“What if it turns out bad?” He asked quietly, “I still have no idea what I want, what if I can’t think of anything? What if she doesn’t have the right colours, or-”

“Cas,” Dean interrupted patiently, “it’s just a consultation. No needle is getting near your skin without your say so. If she draws you something and you don’t like it, she’ll change it for you. If she doesn’t have the colours she’ll order them in and we can come back when she’s got ’em. If you don’t have any ideas we can talk it out. It’s gonna be fine”

Cas was grateful for the reassurance, but he was still nervous. He just didn’t want to be disappointed. This felt important and he didn’t want to mess it up by choosing the wrong thing. The artist, Giva Chaudhary, was exceptionally talented, but none of the images in her portfolio had really spoken to him. He was worried that they would get there and she would be unable to produce the thing he wanted on his skin forever and he would either have to go home with nothing, or settle for something that was less than perfect.

“Mr Novak?”

Miss Chaudhary was a small woman who looked to be in her mid-thirties, her black hair was bound in a long plait and she had a smile that seemed almost too large for her face.

“Yes.” Castiel said, standing to shake her hand. “Miss Chaudhary, you work is beautiful.”

“Well thank you, but don’t bother with the ‘miss’, Giva is fine.”

“Cas,” Cas offered, and then, because Dean was leaning to shake her hand too. “This is Dean, a friend.”

“Moral support?” Giva asked, her dark eyes twinkling, “Understandable, a first tattoo can be a scary business.”

“It’s not his first,” Dean said immediately, “but this one’s important, he wants it to be right.”

Giva nodded and gestured them to sit, she did as well, laying a sketchbook and some pencils on the table in between them.

“So, Cas, do you know what you’d like?”

Cas felt himself flushing and stammered out an apology which Giva waved away, “Not a problem, that’s what these talks are for, yes? If we don’t figure it out today you can always come back another time. So what drew you to my work in particular?”

So Cas told her, he answered her questions and looked through her books. She made some further sketches as he talked, of nothing in particular, nothing _important_, and so her sketches, while lovely, were nothing like what he was looking for. Dean was quiet throughout, Cas kept glancing at him to gauge his reaction to each piece but he remained stubbornly neutral. This only added to his confusion, how was he supposed to decide if he didn’t know if Dean would like it or not?

“I wonder if I might ask your friend to go and get us some sandwiches from across the street.” Giva said after thirty minutes of light conversation and not much progress.

Dean was reluctant, but agreed when Cas nodded to him and left with a significant ‘call me if you need me’ look.

The second the door closed, Giva let out a long sigh. “Perhaps you can speak more easily now,” she said. “I notice you very much want his approval.”

“I trust his judgement,” Cas said, carefully.

“I don’t doubt his judgement, only that in this case, his opinion matters less than yours. He will approve the most if you’re happy.” Giva said with a kind smile, as though she saw this kind of thing all the time. “You care for him deeply,” she observed.

“I-” there was no sense in denying it. “Yes. Dean and I… we’ve been through a lot.”

“Tell me,” Giva said, sitting back in her chair, sketchbook at the ready.

Cas cleared his throat.

“Err… Well… I suppose you could say I come from a very strict background,” he began, picking his words carefully. “When I first met Dean, more than a decade ago now, I pulled him from a dark place; it was a duty for me at the time, to keep an eye on him, look out for him and his brother, to try and keep them on the righteous path. Dean… Dean disliked being led.” He felt a small smile tugging at his lips. “I found myself admiring that, helping him more that I was supposed to and as I grew closer to Dean, I began to see my family for what they truly were. They tried to get me back, keep me under their control but I fought for my freedom because Dean showed me how.”

“Freedom is an important thing.” Giva said encouragingly as she sketched. “Worth fighting for. But it can be difficult if family disagrees with your choices.”

“I made many mistakes that I can never redeem.” Cas said, “A lot of bad decisions that got people hurt. Dean forgave me even when he had every right not to, while my family betrayed me, cast me out, hunted me.”

“A fall from grace, sounds like.” Giva muttered, Cas looked up sharply but the petite woman wasn’t even looking at him, she was focused on her sketch.

“That would be… incredibly accurate.”

“So why the tattoo now?” Giva asked, her pencil stilling for a moment, “This is your first important one, but you waited ten years?”

Cas tilted his head, formulating his answer before speaking, looking down at his own hands, “For years after I met Dean, my body didn’t feel like my own. Like it was someone else’s and I was just using it. It has taken me a long time to… settle into my own skin, as it were. These clothes are his but they fit me now and so have become mine. My other tattoos are copies, but _this_ will be the first thing about my body that isn’t inherited.”

Giva nodded again and asked nothing more, continuing to sketch in silence, she tore three separate pages from her notebook when she was done and laid them out one by one.

Cas didn’t even look at the third sketch, the second one was perfect.

***

“So I drive all this way _and_ I have to drive all the way back again in four days but you’re not gonna tell me what you’re getting?”

“I don’t want you to see it before it’s done.” Cas said, holding Giva’s sketch tightly to his chest. Before Dean had come back in with sandwiches, they had discussed minor tweaks and colours and Giva had given him the sketch to look over in case he wanted to change anything else before his appointment. She assured him that even the day of, if there was anything that he wasn’t certain of it could be changed to his liking as long as he told her before she got her needles out. In fact, all Dean knew about the piece was that it was going to be large and on his back, and that they would probably need more than one appointment to get it all done.

“If it’s Bob Ross’ face, I’m disowning you.” Dean griped.

“You don’t _own _me,” Cas pointed out. “So disowning me would be pointless.” And then, “and it’s nobody’s face.”

***

It was worth the wait. That was all Dean could think a few weeks later when Cas dropped his shirt so that Dean could see the healed and completed piece. No wonder Giva had looked so pleased with herself after Cas’ last session, no wonder Cas had been beaming through red eyes.

Wings.

If Cas had asked his opinion he’d have said perhaps a little on the nose but he would have been eating those words.

They covered almost the entirety of Cas’ back with anatomically correct (he was assuming) detail but they were by no means static, the top half was full and thick with shimmering feathers, so dark they were almost black, but whatever ink Giva used caught the light, sending beautiful tones of blue, green, purple and magenta skittering across them. They swept down the curve of Cas’ spine where the feathers began to thin, hints of red and orange entered the mix, not enough to take away from the beauty of the above, just a subtle transition where some of the feathers were burning and curling into ash, then further down still those burnt and falling feathers twisted in the air, transforming into butterflies the same colour as the healthy feathers that weaved around the now bare bones of the wings.

“Holy shit,” he breathed. “Cas, they’re incredible.”

“I can’t manifest my wings,” Cas said quietly, “but I want you to see them as I see them. They are perhaps the thing I miss most about my old life; the symbol of what I was, powerful and grand and sure. But I’m not bound by their rules anymore. And what I am has changed into something more compressed, more human but infinitely more free. That transformation is largely because of you, Dean, and I can’t thank you enough.”

Dean barely realised he had reached forward to touch one of the burning feathers until Cas shivered under his touch, his fingers followed the wings in their progression, along their changes, they followed Cas’ story and he was the one who should be thanking Cas for letting him be a part of it. Without thinking, he dropped his lips to Cas’ shoulder and pressed them there. Cas turned to meet him and their mouths fitted together like they were made to, like they had done this before a thousand times, like, perhaps, they should have.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I posted this on Tumblr before midnight so I'm still technically on time!
> 
> Wish me luck for watching the new episode! I think I'm gonna die.
> 
> As always, feel free to come scream at me [on Tumblr](https://tibbinswrites.tumblr.com/).
> 
> Love Tibbins xx


	26. Wish

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 26 - Wish - Dean wishes for a lot of things.
> 
> Spoilers for 15x03

_I think it's time for me to move on._

Those words echoed in the sound of the bunker door closing behind Cas, they chimed in the clink of crystal as he refilled his tumbler, they slipped down his throat with the burn and bite of the whiskey.

Dean took a chair and sat, staring at the wood of the table, at the three sets of initials carved into it where there should be four. Where there should _always _have been one more than there was, but Dean had never offered.

He wished he had.

It was a long time before Sam emerged from his room; Dean didn't look at the clock so he couldn't say for sure how long. Sam looked like he'd taken a long nap without much rest. His eyes were deep with shadows and grief and his hair looked like a bird had made a nest in it.

"Hey," he said, looking surprised to see Dean when he walked in, though his mouth pursed with disapproval when he saw the empty bottle of whiskey. "Have you seen Cas? I wanted to ask him something."

"Text him," Dean said, tossing back the last of the whiskey before pulling out his emergency flask and topping up. "Cas doesn't live here anymore."

"What?" Sam's confusion was more than visible, Dean practically _felt_ the face scrunch, the processing of the information, and then the hardening. "What did you do?"

"Why do you assume that _I _did something?" Dean snapped.

"Uh…" Sam said sarcastically, "because I _know_ you, and I know Cas and I know that he wouldn't just up and leave without saying anything."

"Things were said."

"Yeah, let me guess, you gave him hell about Rowena."

"You're damn right I did," Dean said looking up into his brother's eyes. "He got her killed. He made it so that _you_ had to kill her! And now she's gone and you feel like crap and we all have to mourn somebody else because _he_ couldn't stick with the goddamn plan!"

"Jesus, Dean." Sam practically fell into the chair opposite him, his legs seeming to give way. "Is this about Mom?"

Dean looked away. "He got her killed too."

"No, he didn't." Sam said, scrubbing his hands from his chin and into his hair. His voice was shaking in the way it did when Sam was pissed and upset and Dean hated it. "I am… too fried to argue with you right now. All I know is that I've lost too many people lately."

Dean had nothing to say to that. He swilled his drink around the glass, watching the ice chips collide with each other in the tiny whirlpool.

Sam sighed and brought his hands away from his head to rest his elbows on the table with a thunk.

"Can't say I even blame him with how you've been treating him lately."

Dean looked up at that, "I don't-"

"You do," Sam cut in with a distasteful twist to his mouth. "And I've let it go because it didn't feel like my business but Cas is my friend too and it is _not_ his fault how any of this went down."

"We had a plan! If he'd just stuck to the plan-"

"Then Belphegor would be ruling Hell and powered with over a billion souls!" Sam said, voice raising with his obvious frustration. "And Rowena _still_ would have had to cast that spell to contain him and maybe it wouldn't even have worked and maybe Cas wouldn't have made it out either! The plan changed."

Dean's jaw clenched at the familiar words. How Sam could be so forgiving when he was the one who lost the most today Dean couldn't fathom. Sure, Rowena had been his friend, but it had always been Sam she really connected with. They had shared trauma after all, and that could be a powerful binding agent.

"Things went wrong," Dean said slowly, trying to articulate himself, "and Cas was right in the middle of it. Because he's _always_ there when things go wrong."

"That's right, Dean." Sam sounded exasperated, "Because he's _always there_."

Dean opened his mouth, then closed it again and swallowed.

"Well…" he said. "Not anymore."

There was a pause while Sam glared at him from across the table.

"You know who you sound like right now?" He said, not waiting for Dean's answer, "Dad."

Dean felt the sting as those words sliced through him, "What?"

"Mom's dead and you don't have a demon to track down or anyone to blame so you _make_ someone. You blame Cas, even though you know, you _know_ that it was no more his fault than it was yours or mine but you can't blame _me_ because you protect me, and you can't blame _Jack_ because he's dead so everything that goes wrong is Cas' fault. Because he didn't stick to your plan, because he isn't perfect, because you know that he'll stand by you no matter how shitty you are." There was bitterness in Sam's voice at that. "I don't know where you got the idea that Cas is some kind of… emotional black hole that you can just throw your pain into, but did you ever care that when you lash out, you actually _hit_ something?"

Dean felt himself pale, he literally felt the blood trickling down away from his face to curdle somewhere in his mid-section. Was that what he had done? He was _angry_, he was so goddamn angry at the angel, though he couldn't explain why. It wasn't just Mary and it wasn't just Jack and it wasn't just Rowena but all those things were tangled together in a huge ball of _something_ that he couldn't push away anymore.

_So you pushed him away instead?_ A little voice murmured at the back of his mind. _What was that he said? That he's losing his powers and you don't care._

"I do care." He said quietly. "He's the one who left."

He felt the eye-roll more than he saw it.

"You're a goddamn idiot, what the hell was he _supposed_ to do? He deserves better than your constant blame and you know it. And maybe for the first time, so does he."

"He said it was time he moved on." Dean said, the words wrenching from his chest. "He was _always_ gonna leave. There's no more apocalypse, no more Chuck, no more big bad, he doesn't need us anymore!"

"He's never needed us," Sam retorted. "He stayed because he wanted to."

"And now he doesn't."

"Congratulations. He'd rather be alone in the world that watch you hate him."

"I don't hate him." Dean said immediately, instinctively, fear gripping at his chest now. "I don't."

"Did you tell him that?"

Dean looked down. He wished he had. More than once. He wished back the harsh words of calling Cas wrong, as though that wasn't the very thing that Cas was terrified of, of being wrong, of not belonging, of being useless. And his powers were failing, and Dean couldn't talk to him about it because what if Cas wanted to try out a normal, human, powerless life now? What if he wanted to go back to being Steve the sales associate? What if he wanted to leave _anyway_?

He wished that thought didn't hurt so goddamn much.

"So fix it." Sam said, as if it were that simple. "You've had so many chances to get this right. Rowena and I… we never even got the chance to try. What is the point of being free if we make ourselves just as miserable as we were when God was pulling the strings? You can fix this Dean, but only if you actually go and fix it. He's not going to come back if you don't."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's late! That episode BROKE ME so all I had in my brain was a record-scratching sound. It hurt so good. Thoughts?
> 
> You can Tumblr me [here](https://tibbinswrites.tumblr.com/).
> 
> Love Tibbins xx


	27. Villains

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 27 - Villains - Cas will rebuild - spoilers for 15x03.

Castiel drove for more than two days, stopping only for gas, and ended up in a town in Maine called Belfast. He didn’t really know why there, he was just about at the edge of the United States and the edge of his own being. He rented a room using the card Dean had given him so long ago. It was the Winchester’s money… of a fashion, and he felt a little bad about using it now that their partnership had come to an end.

Then again, there was a tiny glimmer of satisfaction that Dean would be footing the bill, not only for his room but for the gas he had used to get here. He wasn’t worried about them coming to find him. Sure, they could easily track him down with his purchases but why would they bother? If they wanted him to stop using the card they had his cell number, they could call him. For Dean it was probably a small price to pay to have him out of their lives. Still… he resolved to get his own card as soon as he could. If he truly were to move on, he needed to replace those kinds of support beams with ones he made himself.

He’d got a few texts from Sam since he left. An apology for whatever Dean had said, an invitation to call, but he hadn’t responded. He wasn’t sure he could face hearing Sam’s voice, his sympathy; it would be too easy to fool himself into thinking that Sam actually cared and that he wasn’t just being kind.

He sat on a bed he didn’t need watching the room grow darker. He didn’t bother turning on the light, he could see just fine. His _powers_ may be failing but he was still an angel, and there was more than the flashy tricks he could perform that separated him from humanity. At least, he’d always thought so, but even aspects of his biology seemed to be changing. His capacity for emotion had to be at least somewhat physical by now and he _felt_ tired even if he knew he wouldn’t sleep.

What was he supposed to do now? All of his resources were tied up with the Winchesters, all the small possessions he’d collected over his stay there. Not many things, granted, but the room he had been gifted as his own was more than the box with a bed, a desk and a dresser it had been when he first began staying there.

Should he go back and get them at some point? Or should he ask Sam to send them on if he found somewhere steady? He would want them back when that happened; they might not be treasures but they were his, and what else did he have to show for his existence? His wings were beyond repair and useless, his siblings either hated him or were indifferent, his father was gone, hopefully for good and the friends he had clung so tightly too had finally managed to shove him off.

He didn’t regret leaving, not exactly, he knew it was the right thing for everyone. Clearly Dean didn’t want him around, would keep blaming him, keep seeing him as _wrong,_ as a constant disappointment. Castiel hated to admit that the Empty had been right all along about that. Sam… perhaps they could salvage something of their friendship, though Cas didn’t hold out much hope. He didn’t want to be the cause of friction between the brothers and he wasn’t even sure Sam would want to try.

As for everyone else… perhaps Claire could still be counted as his friend, but all of the others had come through the filter of Sam and Dean and he didn’t want to put Claire in that position.

Cutting all ties it was then… for now.

Cas buried his head in his hands and gave himself over to the despair. Perhaps it was because staring at asphalt for prolonged periods of time did strange things to the mind or perhaps he was just so indoctrinated into the Winchester way of life by this point but he _missed_ them. Already, terribly. It felt like grief, like defeat, like surrender; it felt like he had made it through the final God-created apocalypse only for his world to collapse anyway.

And not a single word from Dean. He had no doubt Sam would mention it to his brother if Cas got in touch but he hadn’t tried to reach out himself. Did he truly not care? Over a decade of fighting together and forgiving each other’s mistakes and it it had all boiled away into formless, useless nothing? He wasn’t sure what he expected, but he was bitter about it all the same.

Who exactly was the villain here? Castiel wasn’t sure. An argument could be made several ways. Chuck for orchestrating this entire mess, Belphegor for his final betrayal that had caused Cas to disrupt the plan, Dean for not allowing Cas to even attempt to bridge the gap forming between them or Cas himself for being _wrong_.

He pushed that thought away. If he was being honest with himself he didn’t really blame Dean for his anger. Things had gone horribly wrong and Rowena was just the final person in a long line of recent losses, anger was natural. The build of grief and the lack of time to process and that Mary was one of the fallen was an extra blow to a man on the verge of implosion and Castiel was only making things worse by being around to irritate him further. Also… Cas didn’t think he deserved it.

Dean’s ire was understandable but that didn’t mean Cas had to be around to absorb it. He’d done that enough over the years, put up with snide comments and outright insults and biting words whenever Dean was in a bad mood and he had had enough. Mary had been his friend too, Rowena had been… if not a friend to him then an ally. Jack had been his _child_ and Dean had wanted to murder him, almost _had,_ and Castiel had not once brought it up, though he had wanted to on several occasions. Dean had forgiven Jack for killing his mother, why couldn’t he forgive Cas for trying to protect his son? Why didn’t he _trust_ that Cas had made the right decision in the moment, the only one that he could?

He remembered a time, around eight years ago, that he had stood invisible in a room and watched Dean defend him with a fierceness he didn’t deserve. He’d been actively betraying the Winchesters then but Dean, despite the evidence, had refused to believe it of him.

He had been the villain then, and now Dean was only too quick to label him one. But he wasn’t, he _wasn’t_.

_Were_ there villains in this new world without Chuck? Leaving aside demons and those creatures fully corrupted by their biology, there was simply no need for them. This wasn’t a story anymore, it was just life. And a bad person was not the same thing as a villain.

He didn’t think that Dean was a bad person, he was just a bad person for _him_. The depth of Cas’ feelings for the Righteous Man were such that he gravitated towards him almost without thinking. Dean had created his own orbit and it had taken more effort than Cas thought he possessed to pull himself out and walk away.

Castiel couldn’t help but be proud of himself for that, sitting alone in a motel room Maine; after all, choosing to go it alone after millennia of constant connection with his siblings and then with the Winchesters, at least for him, had been just a little bit brave.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back on track, woop woop!
> 
> And this one could be seen as connected to the last one... they are in a very similar (*ahem*, the same) vein. So if that's your headcanon, go for it, just remember that tomorrow's is almost certainly not going to to be in any way related :P
> 
> As always, I'm you can find me on Tumblr [here](https://tibbinswrites.tumblr.com/) ^_^
> 
> Love Tibbins xx


	28. Make-up

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 28 - Make-up - Cas looks to experiment and Dean is a mess. - A little angsty, a little fluffy.

“Cas… what are you doing?” Dean asked after he came into the kitchen to get coffee and found Cas hunched over his laptop, squinting at the screen like it has personally offended him.

“Watching a make-up tutorial.”

Dean took a breath before asking the question, and he took that breath for several reasons. For one thing, he had just been handed a goldmine but needed more context to know whether he should start digging or not, for another, it took him the span of about a breath to really process the fact that Cas’ glare didn’t really match up to the video he was watching so third, he really wasn’t sure he’d heard right.

“Why?”

Cas’ head tilted though his eyes never left the screen. “Because I really like how this woman has done her eyes and I wanted to learn how.” He shrugged and sat back a little, folding his arms across his chest. “But it looks very complicated.”

“You wanted to learn how.” Dean repeated, his brain scratching over the little snippets of information like a jumpy record player.

“Yes.”

“Guys don’t wear make-up, Cas.”

“I’m not a ‘guy’” Cas said, using his fingers as quote marks. “I’m an angel.”

“Well you’re in a guy vessel.”

“Not always.” Cas argued. “Besides, what does it matter? There aren’t laws, are there?”

“Depends where you go.” Dean said. Taking a seat, his coffee forgotten. “Look, Cas. People are gonna judge you. If you go out wearing make-up like that, there are a lot of people out there who are gonna hate you for it and maybe even try to hurt you.”

“Dean… we fight _demons_.”

“Yeah, I said ‘try’.” Dean said, waving the comment away. He was less worried about physical attacks and more about the emotional ones. “People are gonna say things and I’m gonna be honest, I’m not wild about it either.”

Cas frowned at that. “You don’t think this would look nice?” He asked, spinning the laptop around so Dean could see the screen. Dean looked at it, and then forced himself to look away.

“It looks nice on her,” he admitted.

“So what’s the problem?”

“I told you, people are gonna think-”

“I don’t care what people think.” Cas said, “I care what _you_ think. We save people, what does it matter if I’m wearing eyeliner while that happens?”

“It doesn’t, okay! It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t make any difference at all! But people think it does, and we need to be respected doing what we do. We need people to follow us when we say jump, we need monsters to be afraid when they know we’re around. We need to get into classified files and restricted areas and-”

“And the idea embarrasses you.” Cas finished.

Dean swallowed and nodded, hating the way Cas’ face fell.

“Well I don’t want to be an embarrassment,” he said, flipping the lid of the laptop closed and making to stand but Dean grabbed his sleeve and tugged him back down.

“I know what this makes me, I _know_.” He said, his voice soft and afraid. “I know it shouldn’t matter, I know it’s my problem, I know that you can save people while wearing eyeliner and that person is still saved. I know it shouldn’t make a difference, but it _does_.”

“Because you’re afraid that people will think you’re different too.”

Damn Cas. Damn Cas and his damn insight. Dean nodded again.

“Dean, I think it’s time you heard something spoken aloud to you.”

“What?”

“It’s okay to be different.”

Dean blinked at him, the generic words hitting him differently from this angle, from _Cas_.

“I’m not gonna stop you if you wanna start wearing stuff, Cas.” Dean said, the words wrenching at his insides more than it should.

“I don’t want to make you uncomfortable,” Cas said with a soft smile. “But perhaps we can work up to it? How about, on occasion, just in the bunker? Just you and Sam to judge me.”

Dean grabbed at the olive branch that was being offered him. “I think that would be okay,” he muttered. Then, “I think you’d look real nice in eyeliner, Cas.”

“Good.” Cas said, his face softening to happy. He leaned over to kiss Dean’s temple. “And if _you_ ever wanted to try something, just us, I think you would look beautiful.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Something with (a little) more levity than the past couple, though it's still kinda angsty. I wanted to get that something like this would be difficult for Dean, even though it's not something that should even be an issue. I hope I got a decent balance.
> 
> I'm on Tumblr [here](https://tibbinswrites.tumblr.com/) if you wanna come find me.
> 
> Love Tibbins xx


	29. Poison

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 29 - Poison - Dean drunk dials Cas - kind of a lead on from Wish - spoilers for 15x03

Dean wasn’t really sure what he was doing in a dive bar pickling his liver when he could be doing the same at home for free and in solitude. Maybe that was it, the solitude. He’d had too much of that lately and he felt an intense need to be around people. Not necessarily to interact with them, but just to assure himself that they _had_ saved the world, one last time. It was still here; whiskey that tasted like gasoline and drunken assholes leering at the bartenders and using any excuse to throw a punch or an insult or try their sloppy hand at pool.

His kind of people.

He finished his drink and waved for another, sliding the girl, (he couldn’t bring himself to call her a woman, was she even over 21?) a few extra bucks and and apology for the louts at the other end of the bar.

“Oh, don’t you worry about it, hon. I’ve seen worse than they.” But she took his money with a wink.

Yeah… she was looking at worse right now, giving him the kind of lingering once-over that he was so used to that he barely even noticed anymore. He’d always had a pretty face and good hair and his job kept him in good shape, though he had more pudge on his stomach than he’d used to and the lines at the edges of his eyes didn’t fade when he stopped smiling.

He didn’t return her look or her interest, young as she was, so she topped up his drink and headed back down the other end of the bar where the tips were probably more lucrative.

_Where it was safer_.

He wondered if everyone else could feel it too and that was why the barstools next to him were empty, despite how packed this place was; the poison rolling off him in waves, a toxic aura that screamed _danger_.

Could they sense just how close he was to his breaking point?

Sam had barely left his room the past few days and Dean had hardly slept. He walked around the bunker seeing all the empty spaces where Cas should be, leaning against the counter in the kitchen, sat at one of the tables in the library, pacing the corridors at night.

How could he have let him walk away?

Why should he have stopped him?

All this time alone had left him inside his own head, replaying every barbed comment, every jab and insult and every ounce of blame that he _knew_ Cas didn’t deserve. He had forgiven him for Mary, wasn’t sure he’d ever really blamed him in the first place. He could still barely believe that two weeks ago he’d had everything: his brother, his mother, his son and his best friend. Things had been stable, or as stable as they ever got. Michael was gone, his family was happy, he and Cas were… well… he’d felt like he had the time to figure it out.

Now he had nothing. And Cas had even less.

He hated how he wasn’t even surprised when Cas left, hated even more the part of him that was. He hated himself more deeply than he had in his Mark of Cain days; if Sam was right, then no one was pulling at the strings of fate anymore, no one was leading him into bad decisions for whatever plot Chuck had in mind. The decision to push Cas away, to refuse to listen to him, to disregard him as though he didn’t know or understand just how much Cas had sacrificed for them, how far he had fallen, how much he had suffered, as though the past decade had meant nothing to him, those decisions were all him, and those venomous words he spat at his best friend, those were his too. Maybe he wasn’t the heroic figure he thought he was, that everyone else thought he was, maybe he never had been; maybe without Chuck’s plan he was just an asshole with a body count and a brother who was tied to him out of obligation.

_You and Sam have each other_.

Cas had said that before leaving, but that wasn’t really true. He had Sam, and Sam just had another problem.

Him and Sam against the world, that’s all he’d ever needed, all he’d ever wanted. But then Bobby had taken them in, and Cas had betrayed Heaven for them, and he’d met Ellen and Jo and Ash and Kevin and Charlie and Claire and Jody and his little family had just kept growing and Sam just wasn’t _enough_ for him anymore. Sam was his bare minimum to keep functioning but with Mom and Jack and Rowena, and now Cas, it was like all his potential for anything more than that was gone too.

He downed several more glasses of whatever the hell the bartender kept pouring him and then slid off his barstool and headed for the door, stumbling a little more than he expected as the booze hit him fully. How much would he have to ingest before it burned out all the bad in him? More than a liquor store, he’d bet, though he might have drunk the equivalent of at least one shelf in the time since Cas left.

He snorted heavily as he left behind the noise of the bar for the cold quiet of the street. He turned up the collar of his jacket and shoved his hands in his pockets as he began the long walk home. Not that there was much to go back to, dark rooms and a brother who was furious with him. Some happy ending they’d fought for, huh?

His phone was in his hand though he didn’t remember taking it out. His finger landed on Cas’ contact picture, with two s’s just because it irritated him ("My full name only has _one_ 's', Dean, I don't understand where you're getting the other one from when you shorten it."). The photo was a simple one, Cas was squinting off-camera at Dean, and was halfway through asking him why he’d been told to smile. It was a little blurry but Dean had precious few pictures of Cas and this one captured him better than some of the other ones with a fake, awkward smile plastered to his face. He looked mildly annoyed but there was a fondness there that made Dean’s chest ache, a fondness that he hadn’t seen in a while, that he hadn’t been _deserving of_ in a long time, if ever.

He pressed call before the Sam-voice in his brain could talk him out of it.

The phone rang six times before Cas answered, it felt like months.

“What do you need?”

“No hello?” Dean asked, his voice slurring more than he would like. “Was ’specting a hello.”

“You’re drunk.”

Dean felt shame colour his cheeks at the disappointment in Cas’ voice, pointed disappointment too, which hurt all the more.

“I’ve been _drinking_.” Dean emphasised, forming his words as carefully as he could while still putting one foot in front of the other. He’d gotten pretty good at faking sober.

Cas sighed, heavy and deep. Dean wanted to crawl into the sound and let it rock him to sleep. He wondered where Cas was. He hoped he was somewhere safe.

“Why did you call?”

“Didn’t know if you’d pick up.”

“Well, I did. I thought it must be important if you were calling me at two in the morning.”

“It is important.”

“Oh?” The scepticism was clear and Dean could picture the raised eyebrow, the look of fake-surprise that Cas did so well.

“I miss you.”

A huff of breath.

“Not good enough.”

“Cas-”

“No!” Cas interrupted him and Dean winced at the unexpected volume. “You don’t get to do this, Dean. You don’t get to wait a few days and then call me in the middle of the night, _drunk,_ and expect me to come running. It’s over, I’m _done_ being summoned by you when it’s convenient.”

“But… you picked up.” It sounded lame, even to his ears.

“I picked up because your lives are dangerous. I thought you might need lore on a hunt, or that Sam was in trouble. I still _care_. _I’m_ not the one who can just turn that off.”

Ouch. That stung.

“Not that I could be any help to you anyway,” Cas continued, the bitterness oozing through the phone. “Do you know why I took so long to pick up? I was _sleeping_, Dean. I do that now. Sleep. Not much but… some. Not that you care. Even though this could mean any number of things, about Chuck, about Heaven, about _me_. But unless the world’s in danger it’s just not your problem, is it?”

“You’re my problem,” Dean said hotly, the words coming out harsher than he meant them, with far too much bite. “Shit, I mean…”

“It doesn’t matter what you _mean,_” Cas said, and was that… exhaustion in his voice? “It’s what you say, it’s what you do. What you mean doesn’t actually mean anything unless you can back it up.”

“You said we were real.” And _that_ came out far too much like begging for his pride to be comfortable.

Another sigh. “We are real, Dean. But just because it’s real doesn’t mean that it’s _good_. You won’t work with me to make it better, what- what else was I supposed to do? I won’t be used anymore. I’m so tired of being used.”

“Come home?” Dean pleaded, he was definitely begging now. He’d actually stopped walking, unable to breathe and listen and hurt at the same time. “I’ll listen to you, I promise. And I’ll… I’ll let you pick the movies and I’ll try not to yell at you and I’ll help you figure out whatever’s happening with your powers and I’ll fix it. I’ll fix it, Cas. I just… I need you to come home. I don’t know what I should be doing right now. Sammy’s too pissed and too wiped to hunt and I don’t have anything else. Please?”

“No.” Cas said, but it was gentle, so gentle. “I’m not trying to punish you, Dean. That’s not what this is. I need to know that I can live without you. And you need to figure out what you have other than your brother and your job. The world is safer now than it has ever been, what do you want from it?”

“You.”

“Oh, Dean.” Cas’ voice sounded thick and soft. “Drink some water and get some sleep. If you want to talk when you’re sober…”

“I won’t,” Dean said quietly.

“I know.”

“I don’t wanna say goodbye.”

There was a brief pause then, and he knew what Cas was going to do next, because Cas had always been stronger than him, he’d always been able to do the hard thing when Dean couldn’t. He’d always tried his best to suck the poison out.

“Goodnight, Dean.”

The screen went black and Dean almost hurled the damn thing into the trees. Instead he curled his fingers around it and shoved it back in his jacket pocket along with this hands, only just realising that his fingers had gone numb with the cold. But that was alright, they weren’t the only things about him that were.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... whatcha think?
> 
> I was very loose with the definition of 'poison' and didn't even really focus on it but oh well, hopefully it still counts.
> 
> I kinda needed Dean to say the wrong words, enough to show that he does care, but not enough to get Cas back, ya feel me? I hope I got the balance okay.
> 
> I'm on [Tumblr](https://tibbinswrites.tumblr.com/).
> 
> Love Tibbins xx


	30. Kansas

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 30 - Kansas - The song seems to be following them. - Angst and implied MCD at the end because I'm cruel :P

He wasn't sure why the song was following them. It seemed to crop up once every few weeks. It would be playing over the tinny speakers of the diner they were in, or it would sputter out through Baby's radio the _one_ time Dean decided to take a break from his tapes. It was on one of his tapes, too, so if Dean ever got a hankering for Steve Walsh's voice then it was the first track he heard.

Don't get him wrong, it was a good song, he liked it as much as any guy who was into classic rock. It wasn't as good as Zeppelin, but he didn't hold grudges.

_Carry on my wayward son,_

_There'll be peace when you are done._

But it did seem to follow them around. A song that old had no reason to be played on the jukebox so often by college students in bars, it had no reason to be playing in Wal-Mart or crop up every single time he re-shuffled his playlist of over 2000 songs, or added by freaking teenagers into a musical about their lives. He'd even heard it in the most religious of towns they passed through, where rock music was the devil's voice or something. He wanted to tell them that Lucifer didn't have the range.

It was just one of those weird things, he supposed. He made a point to try not to listen too closely to the song when he heard it, unless hearing it was something he set out to do. Which he did sometimes because again, good song.

_Lay your weary head to rest,_

_Don't you cry no more._

He'd mentioned it briefly to Sam, just a 'isn't it funny how this song is always playing, no matter what state we're in?' Sam had just shrugged and said he hadn't noticed. Of course, Sam had never really been into music the way he was.

They'd gone for cases on longer shots that 'this song is following me' but it just didn't seem important. Maybe it was only because after the fourth or fifth time he'd noticed that he started listening for it, and that made him hear it all the more.

_Once I rose above the noise and confusion,_

_Just to get a glimpse beyond this illusion;_

_I was soaring ever higher,_

_But I flew too high_.

Cas had seemed interested when he'd mentioned it, but hadn't offered an further insight as to why it happened.  
  


"Why anything?" Had been his answer, which, despite being the start of a fun philosophical debate in any other crowd that wasn't fully and painfully aware of the existence of God, wasn't exactly helpful in this instance.

_Though my eyes could see, I still was a blind man,_

_Though my mind could think, I still was a mad man._

_I hear the voices when I'm dreaming,_

_I can hear them say…_

Maybe it _was_ God, he found himself thinking. The guy did seem to have a weird kind of obsession with them after all. Maybe He thought it was funny to give them a theme song and blast it in the most unlikely of places.

The thought didn't bother him, until it did. He wasn't annoyed by it, until he was. It varied depending on his mood; how his day had gone, what the next case looked like, whether the song was rounding off a successful hunt or a bad one.

It wasn't frequent enough to devote much of his time to though. He had much bigger things to worry about.

_Masquerading as a man with a reason,_   
_My charade is the event of the season_   
_And if I claim to be a wise man,_   
_Well, it surely means that I don't know._

It did… _niggle_ at him though. It felt like it was important, like if he heard the song more than once in a week then it was going to be a big week, usually in a bad way. It felt like a warning, like a sign, and Dean hated to think of himself as that kind of superstitious.

_On a stormy sea of moving emotion,_   
_Tossed about, I'm like a ship on the ocean;_   
_I set a course for winds of fortune,_   
_But I hear the voices say…_

There wasn't really anything to do about it except keep noticing, he supposed. If he could use it as an early warning system then that was helpful, but it made him wonder who was bothering to give him a head's up when everything was about to go to crap. It wasn't exactly _specific_ on what he needed to be prepared for, so he'd spend the whole time tense and on edge, along with whatever else was going on that already had him tense and on edge. Maybe when the week went bad because of something he did, it had something to do with the song that was stuck in his head, with the way it made him anxious to act.

Maybe it wasn't so helpful after all.

_Carry on,_   
_You will always remember._   
_Carry on,_   
_Nothing equals the splendour._

Sometimes he took the lyrics at face value, took comfort in a song that told him to just keep on chugging. It was more soothing than any of those stupid cross-stitched messages that adorned the walls of far too many homes in his opinion. Stuff like _Live, laugh, love_ and _Keep calm and carry on_. When had that crap become popular? Inspiration didn't come from empty words written by some kid in a greeting card factory, it came from _music_. It came from the cadence of notes, from lyrics sung from the very soul. He'd always though that. About one of the only things his dad had taught him outside of hunting.

_Now your life's no longer empty,  
Surely heaven waits for you._

Lately he'd been hearing it more often, beating behind his skull to the tempo that Michael had had when he was stuck in there; it was causing no little amount of fear, especially since Jack had burned off what was probably most of his soul to kill him.

It felt like it something was building, something huge, something cosmic, something that he wasn't sure he was ready for. The song became a war cry and a funeral dirge, it became every worry that they wouldn't make it through this one, and every confidence that they would.

And then it stopped altogether… After hearing that song almost everywhere for weeks, now it had gone silent.

Dean didn't find any comfort whatsoever in that. This was just the breath before the wave hit, the calm before the storm came to uproot trees and destroy homes. The longer he went without hearing it, the more certain he became that the next time would be the last.

_Carry on my wayward son,_

_There'll be peace when you are done._

He pushed his thumb down on the hammer of the Equaliser, hearing the click as the gun cocked. The song was playing from somewhere behind him; a car radio probably, Sam trying to stop him from doing something stupid.

Chuck turned to face him, His face dark as a thunderstorm; every bit the ruthless deity who had sent plagues and wrath and a swarm of angels to murder first-born sons in their beds.

"Plot twist." Dean said. And then he pulled the trigger.

_Lay your weary head to rest,_

_Don't you cry no more._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so I'm warning you now, tomorrow's prompt may not go up tomorrow. If I can't get it done in the morning before work then it just might not happen until Friday. I may or may not have real-life plans (it's ambiguous at the moment). But if I do not have plans then I will do my absolute best to get it done. ^_^
> 
> Also, it's gonna be gooey levels of family fluff... I have decided :P
> 
> As always you can find me [on Tumblr](https://tibbinswrites.tumblr.com/).
> 
> Love Tibbins xx


	31. Halloween

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is it. The final chapter... much later than I'd hoped, but my real-life plans did indeed happen and they ran long, but in the very best way ^_^ (I got all my Christmas shopping done and spent faaaaar too much money but I also bought a jumper that has the CUTEST polar bear face on it and that one's just for me).
> 
> It's also a bit less family fluff than I planned... but I hope you like it anyway ;)
> 
> Day 31 - Halloween - spoilers for 15x03

Dean stood outside the motel room door for a full six minutes before he worked up the nerve to knock. It took eleven seconds for the door to open on Cas wearing a smile and a floppy, purple, light-up witches hat.

"Happy Hall- oh." His face fell as soon as he saw Dean, and the hand holding the bowl of candy dropped, spilling a few Jolly Ranchers onto the dirty beige carpet.

"Trick or treat?" Dean said with a guilty half-shrug. He'd almost forgotten that it was Halloween; it was still just light outside, a little too early for the costumed kids to be out in full force. "Sam told me where you were. I'm glad you're not too far out." In fact, Cas' chosen stop for the past few days was only a 45 minute drive from the bunker, which hadn't been nearly enough time for him to talk himself out of the trip.

"Yes, well I wouldn't want to inconvenience you," Cas said with bite.

Dean winced. "I didn't mean it like that." He shifted his weight between his feet and glanced around. No one else was out yet, probably putting the finishing touches on whatever costumes or decorations they'd thrown together. He felt exposed on Cas' doorstep, and the chill nipped at his skin through his jacket but if Cas didn't want to invite him in then he wasn't going to bring it up.

Fortunately, after a few seconds' deliberation, Cas stepped back, looking annoyed but not as furious as Dean had expected, and held the door open for him. Dean stooped to pick up the Jolly Ranchers and drop them back in the bowl still dangling at a dangerous angle from Cas' hand. Cas jolted into action and set the bowl down before shutting out the crisp fall air behind him.

"It's been months."

"I know."

"You couldn't have called ahead? Let me know you were coming?"

Dean fiddled with the zipper on his jacket. "I didn't know if you'd answer the door."

"Shouldn't that have been my choice?"

"It was your choice to let me in." Dean pointed out.

Cas sighed heavily, "What do you want from me, Dean?"

"Just your time. A few minutes to hear me out."

Cas' lips pinched but he nodded and gestured for Dean to continue. Dean was too scared to even crack a smile at how ridiculous Cas looked with that pissed expression and a flashing hat.

He took a deep breath and looked down at his hands still playing with the zipper. He couldn't bring himself to meet those eyes. "I'm sorry," he said. "I'm sorry for everything that I said. I'm sorry that I didn't trust you, I'm sorry that I blamed you. I'm sorry that I wouldn't let you talk to me. I'm sorry that I pushed you away."

He dared a glance up but Cas' expression was as unmoving as stone. "I never blamed you for Mom," he continued. "Not really. I was just so mad and so worried and I knew, I _knew_ that I missed the signs in Jack too. But you were the one who loved him first, who knew him best… I dunno why I thought that was a good enough reason to say what I did. It wasn't. I was grieving and I was scared and I was stupid. You were right to walk out. It took me a long time to accept that but you were right."

Air shuddered in Dean's lungs as he inhaled; Cas didn't need to know about the two months of downward spiral, the weeks spent in an alcohol-infused haze, the four separate times he'd completely trashed his room, the dozen or so times he exploded at a still-grieving-and-increasingly-concerned Sam before Sam had finally exploded back, throwing it in his face that _this _was why Cas had left, because he made people miserable, because he only cared about his own pain, because he seemed to think that the people closest to him only existed as props for him to lean on.

When Sam had compared him to Chuck, _that_ struck a very deep chord. He'd taken a few days to stew, a few more to apologise to Sam, and a few more than that to find a new balance with his brother where they processed their grief together. They'd even scheduled another session with Mia. They hadn't asked her to shift into Mary or Jack or Rowena; _that_ kind of goodbye wasn't what either of them needed, but they were candid in their sessions and didn't have to try to talk around all the crap that had happened. Mia bore up pretty well, considering. They'd also gone for a couple of private sessions each because 'You're both allowed to have your own lives,' as well as some more group ones to 'learn how to support each other without absorbing it all like a couple of morons.'

Dean had talked a lot about Cas in those private sessions, and even more about anger. The talking helped more than he liked to admit, but actually giving it a voice meant he had to listen to his own bullshit, which was super helpful in making him feel like an idiot, but also let him step back to look at the wider picture of who else had been caught up in it.

Cas didn't need to hear about that.

"But I didn't- you have to know, I _do_ care about you, Cas. I care that your powers are weakening, I care that you-"

"Gone," Cas interrupted bluntly. "Not weakening. Gone, for about two weeks now. I think it has something to do with Heaven. Or Chuck's leaving, I'm not sure."

"Oh," Dean said. Then, "that- that must be a lot."

The slight twitch in Cas' jaw told him all he needed to.

"I'm sorry I left you to go through that alone."

Dean knew he was saying the words 'I'm sorry' a lot. Maybe too much. Not because he didn't mean every single apology, but because he was worried that they would start to sound empty.

"Losing them was… an unpleasant transition." Cas allowed.

"So was losing you."

If Dean felt anything other than complete and utter contrition in that moment, he would have grabbed his phone and snapped a picture because Cas' face did something he'd never seen before. A mixture of shock, a blush, a kind of mystified bafflement, a scowl and a smile all seemed to form at the same time and the result would have been comical if Dean wasn't so worried about which one would win out.

He seemed to settle on the bafflement, which wasn't the worst option and Dean would take it.

"I miss you when you're not around," Dean confessed. "I can't tell you how often I asked Sam if he'd heard from you. I worry about you and I hope that you're okay. And I miss knowing that you're there, I miss knowing that I can talk to you. I've told you things that Sam doesn't know, and you know other things that I've never said aloud and I had to hold myself back from praying to you because you said that you were trying to move on. I get that, I do. And I'm not trying to guilt you into coming back. You have no reason to want to. I have treated you like a tool from the beginning and I didn't even realise because it didn't _feel_ like that for me. It felt like I learned to rely on you, to trust you." And then he swallowed because he swore to himself that he'd be honest. He needed to lay himself bare for Cas. "To love you."

He heard the intake of breath but was decidedly _not looking_ at Cas so he couldn't judge just how bad it was; he ploughed on, "It scared the crap out of me. Still does. I don't know how to love like that, and I ended up doing it all wrong and I never even _told_ you because I didn't want it to be true, because if it was true then someone could use you against me. You became a weak spot. But you also made me stronger than I thought I ever could be and I didn't know what to do. So I called you my best friend because you were… you _are_, and I thought I could ignore the rest. But every mistake you made felt bigger than it was, every choice that I didn't like felt like a betrayal and every time I would twist it around and make you feel like crap because it was easier than admitting that I was just terrified of losing you."

He risked a look. Cas' expression was somewhat pained, but not really angry anymore. At least, not at surface level.

"Why did you come here, Dean?" Cas asked quietly. "After all this time, why now?"

"Because it's taken me this long to figure it out." Dean replied. "And to grow the stones to actually say it. I'm not here to ask your forgiveness or to beg you to come back, I don't expect anything. You have every right to hate me. But you deserve at least an apology, and I wanted you to know your options. I just- I want you to be _happy_, Cas. With or without me I want to know that you're in the world and you're living the life that you want. You've spent enough time living for other people."

"And… if I _wanted_ to return to the bunker with you?"

Dean swallowed and tried very hard to keep the hope out of his voice. "Then I'd say there's a pumpkin pie cooling on the counter and Sam's waiting to watch _Young Frankenstein_. And, if it's just tonight, that's okay. And if you don't wanna stay then I know Sam really wants you to stay in touch and if you don't wanna talk to me I understand but-"

"I've never tried pumpkin pie." Cas interrupted, moving over to pull a duffle bag from under his bed and began the process of packing.

Dean just stood there, dumbfounded. Watching as Cas carefully collected all of his things and placing them neatly in the bag.

"You- you're coming back?"

He hadn't expected this. He'd _wanted_ it, of course, but he hadn't even dared hope for it.

"Yes." Cas said, as though he hadn't just set Dean's head spinning. "We're going to have to talk more, at length. I haven't forgiven you, Dean, I don't think I can just yet. But I understand why you acted the way you did, at least for the most part. Either way, now that I know that I _can_ live without you, I can in fact, be quite content, I want this to be a new start, on equal footing. I can't go back to taking your orders without question, I will not fall back into that pattern of just letting it slide if you are cruel to me for the sake of cruelty, no matter your insecurities or your fears. I want to help you through them, Dean, and I want to be there for you, but I will not be your punching bag. Is that understood?"

"Yes." Dean's voice was a croak.

Cas looked up at the sound and smiled at him, and it was soft and beautiful and made Dean think of sunlight glimmering on a lake.

"I missed you too," he said. "And I love you. And I'm glad you came here tonight."

"Me too."

Cas zipped up the duffle and swung it onto his shoulder. Then he walked up to Dean, cupped his chin and leaned forward to press a kiss into his hair before reaching around him for the doorknob and letting himself back out to throw his bag in the trunk.

Dean let himself be flustered for three seconds, let himself melt a little at the sensation of feeling protected, of the ease with which Cas had made the gesture, as though it was their routine. He hoped that it could be, he really did.

When those seconds were up, he grabbed the bowl of candy, because no way was he leaving perfectly good Halloween candy just lying around, and headed out to the car himself. He slid into the driver's seat, gave Cas the candy to hold in his lap (along with the hat, which was too tall for the car) and started the engine.

Less than ten minutes in he gave into the temptation to reach for Cas' hand, which he willingly gave; it was warm and firm and strong and Dean could barely believe that he was holding it.

"Thank you," he whispered, barely audible over the loud purr of Baby's engine.

Cas squeezed his hand in response.

Things weren't fixed between them. There would be more arguments, more long talks, more slammed doors. But there would also be more hand-holding, more gentle kisses, more touches and more patience from the both of them. Like Cas had said, they were on equal footing in this now, both a little off-balance but willing to steady each other. They would figure it out, as they always did, and happiness would come.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So there you have it. The fix-it fic that a lot of people asked for. I hope it lived up.
> 
> I wanted to thank everyone who has stuck with this messy collection of fics. The response from you all has been incredible and even though at times it has been very stressful, and having pretty much no time to do anything other than work or write, your comments and kudos have made it more than rewarding.
> 
> You can find me [on Tumblr](https://tibbinswrites.tumblr.com/) if you want to get in touch. I truly love hearing from you.
> 
> I will probably add another 'notes' chapter to let you know when I've gone back through and done a bunch of editing, so keep an eye out for that if you wanna re-read these fics with fewer typos xD
> 
> Love Tibbins xx


	32. Announcement!

Hey guys! 

So this is just a chapter so that those who wished to be notified can now know: I have been through and edited all these fics!

Most of them have just been tweaked in minor ways, typo fixes and the like, some have been embellished a little more (particularly 'Baby') so if there were any of these fics that you particularly liked, hopefully they're even better now ^_^

Thanks for all your support. You're wonderful.

Love Tibbins xx


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